OPTIMA Chairman Urges More Funds for Health Plan

John Cochran III, elected chairman of the organization created to improve health care for Orange County’s 225,000 Medi-Cal recipients, said Wednesday there is a pressing need to find more start-up funding.

Cochran, the administrator of Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim, said that while the state has promised to provide the county-based program known as OPTIMA with $500,000 in seed money, an estimated $3.5 million more may be needed for administrative and planning costs before the program begins in January, 1995.

Unless new financial sources are found soon, he said, it will be difficult for the program to recruit a high-quality executive director to run OPTIMA, a $450-million program that will contract with doctors, hospitals and clinics to serve Medi-Cal beneficiaries.

“Most top-flight people won’t give up a job for one that won’t have a funding base,” Cochran observed.

Cochran, who was unanimously elected chairman of OPTIMA by the organization’s seven-member board of directors at its first meeting Monday, said a national search for an executive director is under way, and he intends to have someone hired by late November or early December.

He said some funding possibilities include applying for outside grants or loans from local hospitals, doctors or the county.

When a similar program was begun on a smaller scale in Santa Barbara County in 1983, the county made a $100,000 loan toward start-up costs. Also, $50,000 was donated by the state, $1.5 million by the federal government and $350,000 by the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York City.

Cochran said that in the past, Orange County has been “generally unwilling to put new money into health care,” but that he hopes the county’s guiding role in the formation of OPTIMA indicates that the county might provide financial support.

However, Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, who formed the Orange County Health Care Task Force that spawned OPTIMA, said Wednesday: “It is hard to address finding money at this time when the county is in difficult financial straits.”

“There is a shared responsibility in funding this,” added Wieder, who also serves on the OPTIMA board. “The county isn’t the local banker.”