Villaraigosa Vows to Tackle ‘Healthcare Crisis’

Flanked by nurses in sturdy clogs and white coats, mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa pledged from the steps of City Hall on Wednesday to find a way to lower the cost of prescription drugs and to ensure that newborns have health insurance.

The city councilman and former state Assembly speaker also picked up the endorsement of the California Nurses Assn., which stemmed in part from his support for laws to reduce nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals.

“Healthcare is usually not part of the mayor’s job description,” said Villaraigosa, whose campaign staff noted that he did not have a healthcare plan in 2001, when he ran against Hahn the first time.

But Villaraigosa said there is a “healthcare crisis” in Los Angeles, with tens of thousands of children who do not have insurance, “unacceptably high” rates of HIV infection and emergency rooms threatened with closure.

Villaraigosa wants to create a countywide bulk-purchasing program to provide lower-cost prescription drugs to all residents and another program to enroll newborns in health insurance programs before they go home from the hospital.

A spokesman for Mayor James K. Hahn’s campaign suggested that Villaraigosa had contributed to the health crisis in Los Angeles by depriving county hospitals of money.

“He helped create the problem by taking money from local government,” said Kam Kuwata, referring to the times when the state Legislature tapped property taxes. “He creates a problem, doesn’t lift a finger to help solve it, and then he goes out and whines about it.”

With the March 8 election less than three weeks away, Villaraigosa was the only candidate to hold a campaign event Wednesday.

Former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg announced a news conference, but then canceled it. He had planned to stand outside the city’s Department of Water and Power to announce his proposal to combat government waste. Campaign officials blamed a scheduling glitch.

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, meanwhile, wrote a letter to the city’s Ethics Commission asking that the mayor be forced to pull one of his television advertisements off the air. In the ad, which started Tuesday, Hahn touts improved police response times.

Parks, who was the city’s police chief until he was forced out by Hahn, contends that officers are taking longer to respond.

According to a city report released Tuesday, police are taking more time to respond to non-emergency calls, but emergency calls are being answered more quickly.