With an expansion in Medicaid eligibility taking place in 2014, the UC Board of Regents on Thursday began a long-term look at how federal health care reform will impact the UC health system.
A presentation by officials in the Office of the President focused on the role of the University of California in the expansion, with the reopening of Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital in South Los Angeles serving as an example. The project is a collaborative effort between UC and Los Angeles County.
Half of South Los Angeles is currently on Medi-Cal, the state version of Medicaid, according to Jack Stobo, senior vice president of UC health sciences and services. The other half is uninsured but will receive coverage with the reform package that was signed by President Barack Obama in March. As many as 16 million uninsured Americans nationwide will be moved to Medicaid when the act goes into effect, according to the presentation.
The newly opened MLK Hospital will likely do better under the reform, Stobo added.
“MLK will make money because it takes care of the uninsured,” Stobo said.
The regents approved the MLK Hospital project in late 2009 but faced concerns that the UC could be at risk financially. The system is structured to avoid that, said Alec Rosenberg, health communications coordinator in the UC Office of the President.
“The county is putting up money to help start it off and maintain it, and creating a nonprofit organization,” Rosenberg said. “UC shouldn’t be on the hook financially but at the same time should be able to make money.”
Stobo and Santiago Muñoz, associate vice president of UC health sciences and services, reported that the hospital is progressing on schedule. The process of selecting board members is underway and should conclude in early August.
According to Stobo, candidates for the seven-member board cannot be UC or Los Angeles County employees, must have 10 years of experience in health care, and exhibit a passion for helping the underserved.
The South Los Angeles community is one of the most underserved populations in the state, according to a December 2008 report by the nonprofit organization Community Health Councils. The report, which discusses regional inequities in access to health care in Los Angeles, was funded in part by the UCLA Center for Community Partnerships.
Once appointed, the board’s first steps will be to appoint staff and executives within the hospital, which is expected to have its first 40 beds operating by the first quarter of 2013.
Stobo, Muñoz and Regent Sherry Lansing repeatedly said that the university should be a leader and a model for health care.
“We should be developing those models that make people say, ‘Look what University of California did to deliver health care,’” Stobo said. He pointed to the UC-wide Prime Program, which sends medical students into underserved communities, as an example of such a model.
UCOP representatives also shared the news that the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center had just been ranked fifth in a U.S. News & World Report ranking of 152 hospitals nationally. UC San Francisco Medical Center was ranked seventh in the same survey.
UCLA has contributed to the innovating spirit of UC with models like the international medical graduate program, which helps doctors from other countries become doctors in the United States, Rosenberg said.
Stobo said the U.S. News & World Report rankings that placed Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center near the top are based on a set of criteria, which include reputation and the ratio of nurses to patients.
“It’s not a gold standard, but (the ranking) is indicative as being a highly recognized institution,” Stobo said.