Groups to Petition on Tobacco Settlement

Local groups plan to forge ahead with efforts to place on the November ballot a county initiative requiring that tobacco settlement money be spent on health care, said state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana).

“We will be putting it together very quickly and getting it on the ballot as quickly as possible,” he said.

The announcement from Dunn, who has been the key figure in negotiations between the county and health care advocates over how to spend the tobacco cash, signals a willingness on the part of the medical community to take on the supervisors.

The Orange County Medical Assn. is lobbying other health care advocates to join the effort, which must get started soon if it is to meet electoral deadlines for signature gathering.

However, Dr. Brennan Cassidy, president of the Orange County Medical Assn., said his group does not want to stand alone in a campaign that could cost at least $250,000.

“We can’t say it is a go until we know we have the support,” he said. “It will take a week or two to assess the situation.”

Health care advocates and physicians oppose supervisors’ plans to spend the vast majority of Orange County’s $900-million share on jails and debt retirement.

“The principle involved here is very important,” said Sam Roth, spokesman for the local medical association.

Supervisors could not be reached for comment.

Backers say it could cost about $150,000 to get the measure on the November ballot. Supporters said they would have to hire a consulting firm to gather 71,206 valid signatures. The deadline is the end of May, said Deputy Registrar Don Taylor.

Once an initiative is drafted, the supervisors would be asked to place it on the ballot, Dunn said, and if they decline, the signature gathering would proceed.

Several statewide groups, including the American Assn. of Retired Persons and the American College of Emergency Physicians, have indicated they would help with the effort.

“We would work on the signature-gathering end of the initiative and with voter education,” said Pat Luby, of the AARP Sacramento headquarters.

Support for spending a large portion of the tobacco funds on health care has come in the past 10 months from Orange County health clinics, some business leaders and hospitals as well as the heart, lung and cancer societies and the Catholic Diocese of Orange, among others.

But not all the participants want to risk a political showdown with the supervisors or are prepared to put up the funds needed to win at the ballot, said several coalition members.

In particular, the hospital’s trade group is concerned that a battle with the supervisors could lead to retribution from the county in the form of less money for helping hospitals with the cost of care for poor people, said several coalition partners.

“As it stands right now, we are not supporting it,” said Jon Gilwee, vice president with the Healthcare Assn. of Southern California, the hospital trade group. “We are not sure that is the proper approach.”

Supervisors have said they would commit as little as 10% of the county’s share of the tobacco windfall on health care during the next 25 years. Supervisors are to meet with the health care coalition in early March to hear proposals for spending the money.

The effort in Orange County would probably replace a statewide initiative, which has lost some of its impetus in recent days in Sacramento as Gov. Gray Davis has allocated more money in his budget to pay for anti-smoking programs and support increased reimbursements for physicians paid under Medi-Cal.

The California Medical Assn., the state’s largest physician group, decided Friday to recommend against a state initiative.

But other groups supporting the plan, including emergency-room doctors, are still interested in a statewide referendum to require state and local governments to spend the $25-million tobacco settlement on health and anti-smoking efforts.

Physicians said they want to keep the option open--perhaps for the November 2002 ballot if not for the fall--while they watch how much money the Davis administration actually allots to health care.

The emergency doctors, who already have collected more than $600,000 to back the statewide initiative plan, will decide in the next two days whether to withdraw the state proposal, said Dan Abbott, president of the emergency doctors group and a physician at St. Jude Medical Center in Orange.