an Excerpt From “Stone Mother”

I met Charles Allen, executive director of the UCLA health-law collective and our attorney in last year’s upheavals, in the cafeteria. We’d filed a class action lawsuit claiming that rendering substandard care jeopardized future licensure and hospital privileges because it was deemed unethical behavior under the AMA’s principles of medical ethics. Suing the supervisors was a bold bluff that likely had a short half-life.

“The lawsuit is going nowhere,” Allen said. “The courts are no more likely to tell the supervisors what to do here than they are to eliminate overcrowding in the county jail.”

“We need a new angle. Patients housed in the hallway have no privacy. It has to be a civil rights violation.”

“The best plaintiffs in a class action would be patients, not doctors. Unfortunately, County is a dumping ground for the powerless, and the supervisors see public hospitals as a waste of tax dollars that buys them zero votes - no political benefit in fixing the conditions here.”

I smiled. “Last year Supervisor Debs told us that poor people deserve poor care. Funny thing - we give excellent care in spite of the limitations. We work our butts off for our patients.”

“I’ll set up a press conference at the LA Press Club. If there’s nothing left, pound the table. They might scare up some funds.”

“Someone has to pay for care here. After we scolded him Neufeld went to Sacramento to beg for money, but they told him to go to Washington where Nixon’s undersecretary of health, Monty DuVal, told him we don’t need money because we’re an HMO. What the hell is that?”

“Capitated care, like Kaiser,” Allen said.

“It’s decapitated care. Now that Reagan’s closed the mental hospitals, putting all the crazy people on the streets, he’s after the public hospital system.”

Allen said, “Our governor is not into helping poor people. He’s a front man for corporations like Union Oil. He’s overwhelmed the property tax base, pitting education, prisons, and health care against each other.”

“His predecessor, Pat Brown, created the best university system in the world. I went to state schools and paid for my education with side jobs. Soon only rich kids will be able to afford college and med school.”

“Dismissing Reagan as a third-rate actor was a huge political mistake. He’s clever, amiable, and well scripted, a man on a mission.”

“As Abe would say, he’s a pawn of the ruling class.”

Allen grinned. “I had no idea doctors could be radical leftists.”

“I’m no Marxist. Reagan’s strategy is obvious. It’s a form of anarchy, governing to abolish government so his cronies pay lower taxes.”