Wednesday, June 27
While View From a loft was out gathering photos of Michael Moore at the South Lawn of City hall yesterday, the Health Committee of the State Assembly moved the bill that would make it illegal to dump patients from hospitals, to the full Assembly and Senate. Rocky Delgadillo is also moving forward with his civil complaints against a hospital that dumped Gavino Olvera on a street corner in skid row .
According to the Sacramento Bee this is now what was approved:
Originally, hospital administrators convicted of "patient dumping" under Senate Bill 275 would have been subject to a misdemeanor, a $2,000 fine and up to one year in jail -- and the hospital fined up to $10,000............................
LATThe first violation would now be an administrative violation subject to a $100,000 fine against the hospital and enforced by the state Department of Health Services.
The second violation would be prosecuted in court as a civil violation with the hospital subject to a $250,000 fine.
Only after the third violation, could hospital officials be charged with a misdemeanor and the hospital fined up to $500,000.
Hospital officials said criminalizing patient dumping after the first offense could exclude hospitals from the federal Medicare and state Medi-Cal programs and force them to shut their doors.
Cedillo called the argument a "scare tactic" and said there was no documented evidence of any hospital having to close after being charged with a misdemeanor.
Andy Bales, chief executive of the Union Rescue Mission, where three of the four patients cited in Tuesday's complaints eventually arrived, said in an interview that he believed the rate of homeless dumping has declined in recent months due to increased media attention. The cases cited by the city attorney's office highlighted the need for more recuperative beds for homeless patients in L.A. County, he said. "It's probably time to quit talking about it and do something significant about it."
In Sacramento, the Assembly health committee on Tuesday approved a bill that would outlaw patient dumping by hospitals, but with less severe penalties than had been sought by the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles). Cedillo said the state's record of policing hospital dumping was so poor that he wanted prosecutors to be able to bring initial cases rather than be limited to repeat offenders.
"We can't go to second base without going to first," he said. "Our goal is to have hospital accountability to make sure hospitals can't buy their way out of this. At some point it should be a crime."
Measure SB 275 now proceeds in the Assembly, and whatever is passed by the full body must be reconciled with the Senate version before anything can be sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
