County Cuts in Public Health
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The plan of Los Angeles County’s Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen to cut public health funding drastically (April 22) is an immediate blow to clients and workers in that system. Given the recent federal welfare “reform,” and the state government’s enthusiastic diminishment of aid to large numbers of residents already living below the poverty line, this plan to further cripple our health care safety net is mean-spirited and shortsighted.
Even if additional cuts (which would undoubtedly follow if predicted receipts fail to materialize) can somehow be avoided, this plan portends disaster as public health safeguards abandoned today inevitably lead to not only increased illness, but dramatically increased health costs, tomorrow.
Progressive citizens of Los Angeles must fight our ongoing and accelerated transition from a forward-looking society, planning for healthy and productive adults, to a custodial one planning for (and spending more and more of its resources on) incarceration of a larger and larger proportion of our (minority population) youth.
NANCY M. HENLEY
JEROME R. HOFFMAN
Los Angeles
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