No health care funds from tobacco settlement

Susan McCormack

COSTA MESA -- Local health-care workers tried to remain optimistic

Wednesday despite the Board of Supervisors’ decision Tuesday to spend

most of its $912 million in tobacco settlement funds to pay off debt and

build a new jail.

“In a way, it was a win and a loss,” said Jean Forbath, founder of Share

Our Selves and Health Alliance to Reinvest the Tobacco Settlement. “The

win was that the supervisors are finally looking at health care, which

they’ve never really done in the past.”

The board told health-care officials that it would work with them during

the next four months to come up with a plan to spend an undetermined

amount of the settlement on the agencies’ needs. Previously, the board

said it would give the agencies $7 million.

Steve Moreau, a Hoag Hospital administrator and chair of the county’s

committee for medical services of indigents, said he is optimistic about

this decision at least.

“Through the negotiation process, we’re just as likely to get more money

as we are to get less,” Moreau said. “I think the negotiation process

gives us a vehicle for really telling [the board] our story.”

During the next 25 years, the county will receive $912 million as part of

a nationwide tobacco lawsuit settlement. No restrictions were set as to

how the money could be spent.

In Southern California, Orange County is the only county not allocating

most of its money toward health care. The Board of Supervisors in San

Diego recently voted to allocate 100% of its settlement funds toward

health-care needs, and in Los Angeles, supervisors voted to build a new

county hospital.

The board has said that paying off its debt, which came to the forefront

when the county went bankrupt in 1994, will save the county hundreds of

millions that may be used to maintain a new jail.

Health care workers say they are worried that the county has totally

strayed from the idea behind receiving the money.

“We certainly understand the validity ... of paying down debt,” said

Forbath. “But the interest they’re saving we feel legitimately should be

used for health care.”

Costa Mesa resident Dennis Clark, chair of the Health Care Council of

Orange County, said he felt “sick” and “totally disappointed” about the

board’s decision.

“This is ‘tobacco settlement money.’ They’ve totally lost sight of that,”

he said. “The fact of the matter is [improved health-care services] will

be in jails. There is a need for people to access those kinds of

[services] without breaking the law first.”