The Coalition for Healthy Communities: Fighting to Save LA County Hospitals, Union Jobs, and Patient Care

In the spring of 2002 the Los Angeles (LA) County Department of Health Services anticipated that in 2005 they would face an eight hundred million dollar deficit, and so they presented plans to "redesign" and dismantle the public health care system that serves nearly three million uninsured residents of LA. The county proposed three possible scenarios that would close clinics and hospitals, and reduce immunization, emergency, and trauma services. Our paper presents the LA Coalition for Healthy Communities' fight-back campaign, which was spearheaded by our sister union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 660. Over fifty stakeholders joined the coalition, including our union, the Committee of Interns and Residents, united under the principle that the LA County public health care system must be adequately funded, and community participation is critical to shaping the public health system. We discuss the activism of the coalition membership, its mobilization around different stages of the campaign, and its failures and successes, including the 2002 November ballot-initiative victory, Measure B, the first property tax increase in California in over twenty years, which will generate $168 million a year for LA County trauma and emergency services.