California closin'?

[bokonon]

I hear the $35 billion debt in California is going to result in many hospital closings - including UCLA-Harbor. Anyone know the facts here?

Inflammatory post script: I sure am glad we gave that tax cut to the evil, bloated plutocracy - it seems to have paid off.

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[Apollyon]

Yeah, something solid would help. When I was at Harbor last month, there were some house staff with "Save Harbor" pins, and I've heard all the rumors, too, but nothing of merit.

 

[docB]

As for the "evil bloated plutocracy" crack one of the reasons that California is so deep in the red (aside from the mismanagement of the Davis administration) is that it relies on its "progressive" tax structure to suck 80% of the state income from the top 20% of taxpayers. Since the rich are not doing as well due to the stock market downturn and slow economy the state can't keep up with many of the truly ridiculous, pork riddled spending orgies it has committed to. Now that the economy is picking up again the revenue will probably be back up to par for the next fiscal year.
As for UCLA-Harbor I don't know anything firsthand but many sites with very poor payer mixes are hurting and may shut down. And that's not just in California.
docB

 

[docB]

I stand corrected. Not about the tax stuff, I was right on with that. I was wrong about not hearing anything about the UCLA situation firsthand. I got the CalACEP newsletter today and it has a full page about how CalACEP is soliciting donations to keep Harbor and Olive View up and running. While this is clearly not a good thing I don?t know if it is a sign of impending doom or not. I may mosey on over to their webpage and see if they mention it just out of curiosity.
BTW ? The date of the CalACEP resolution to support UCLA is 8/1/02 so I guess I just haven?t been paying attention.

 

[blackcat]

how are the rest of the UCs?
I will be interviewing at Irvine soon, what is their situation? thanks

 

[endo]

When I interviewed at Harbor the faculty were very confident that Harbor would not close -- I suppose in part because of measure B (which was a prop. for $170mil annually in property taxes for LA county's public health system), but also probably because they seem to get these scares every few years or so. The residents didn't seem to be phased by the financial woes of LA county at all -- they were some of the most upbeat residents I've seen. Irvine is in Orange county and will not likely be in the dire straits of LA county. They assured me that they are not in jeopardy of closing or anything remotely close to that. UCD said that they are the most profitable of all the UCs -- they don't seem to be in any financial trouble. UCLA-Oliveview -- dunno, they didn't want to interview me but obviously they are also an LA county program. Then again, I won't be going there so I guess I would rather they close before Harbor.

-endo

 

[The White Coat Investor]

I just finished an interview trip that included UCI, UCD, and UCLA-Harbor. I second everything endo said. I got the same lines everywhere. I personally believe that if UCLA-Harbor were to close in a year or two, the top notch faculty at Harbor would find me a spot elsewhere. There were a lot of things about Harbor I didn't like, but the faculty was not one of them. I believe Dr. Bessen that they're not going anywhere. It would start a chain reaction and every other ED in town would be overwhelmed.

Now with regard to the inflammatory, excessively liberal tax comments, do you really think anyone should be in the 40% tax bracket? I say if 10% is good enough for the church, it ought to be good enough for Uncle Sam. I'm not for everything that the Republican party does in this country, but I think government causes more problems than it cures.

 

[bokonon]

Thanks for all of the replies.

Newsflash: we pay lower taxes (percentage-wise) than any other G-8 country. We also have a lower average life-span than any other democratic, industrialized nation (thanks to our 40 million uninsured.)

 

[docB]

So your idea is that we try to tax our way to life span parity?

 

[The Pill Counter]

DocB's right, the unfortunate top 20% are too stupid to have figured out that poverty is the best tax shelter around.

 

[docB]

Huh?

 

[GenMed]

Originally posted by The Pill Counter
DocB's right, the unfortunate top 20% are too stupid to have figured out that poverty is the best tax shelter around.

LOL!!!!