LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services recently announced that their budget would face an enormous deficit starting this year. The accumulative amount of deficit is projected to reach $800 million by the year 2006.

In order to reduce the deficit, the County is taking drastic measures including closing or reducing the services of County-operated hospitals, clinics and programs.

The County is also considering either reducing or eliminating the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program, which has allowed many community clinics to provide primary health care services free to qualified patients.

Asian Pacific Health Care Venture (APHCV) in Los Angeles has used PPP funding to provide primary health care services to qualified patients for free. A reduction or elimination of PPP will adversely affect APHCV and its ability to serve its patients, according to Kazue Shibata, APHCV’s Executive Director.

"We have already reached the financial capacity where we can no longer take any more new PPP patients,” said Shibata. “Our communities are disproportionately affected due to higher number of uninsured Asian and Latino people. Although we are committed to providing quality and affordable care to people in need, the reduction or elimination of PPP will make it so much harder for our clinic to provide the level of services that we have been able to."

Still to be determined are the specifics of the extent of services that will be reduced or eliminated and at what sites. The County Board of Supervisors will be holding a Beilenson Hearing on August 20 where many testimonies are expected to be given by patients and representatives from clinics, hospitals and other groups. Preliminary decisions regarding the reduction and elimination of programs and services will be made by October 2002.

"With the potential closure of the County clinics and elimination of PPP, there will be many people who will be out on the street without access to health care,” said Shibata. “Not only APHCV, but many other community clinics will have to struggle to find a way to care for them." People in the communities who are concerned should write to their representative on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors:

Supervisor Gloria Molina, 1st District
Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, 2nd District
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, 3rd District
Supervisor Don Knabe, 4th District
Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, 5th District
500 West Temple St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012