(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) In light of the closure of Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital, there is a need to ensure adequate funding for continued health care services to the uninsured population of South Los Angeles, including, but not limited to, the Cities of Compton, Lynwood, South Gate, and Huntington Park, the southern and central portions of the Cities of Los Angeles, Inglewood, Gardena, and surrounding unincorporated communities.
(2) The state, the County of Los Angeles, and all health care providers in the South Los Angeles community must work together to meet the health care needs of the community until the critical hospital services previously provided by Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital can be restored at this location.
(3) The Medi-Cal Hospital/Uninsured Care Demonstration Project provides a critical source of funding for services to low-income communities throughout the state that are provided by California’s safety net hospital systems.
(4) The special funding provided in this section is predicated on the express intent of the County of Los Angeles to restore hospital services on the hospital campus, to be operated by either a private or public entity. The county has undertaken a specific plan to do so as quickly as possible.
(5) The Legislature anticipates that demonstration project funds will be available to help fund the reopened hospital. The nature and amount of that funding cannot be determined until the new structure and operation of the hospital is known.
(6) As an interim response to the specific circumstances caused by the closure of this hospital, and until hospital services can be restored at this location, a special fund will be created to receive demonstration project funding to be available to the County of Los Angeles for expenditures to preserve health care services for the uninsured population of South Los Angeles, as defined above.
(b) The South Los Angeles Medical Services Preservation Fund is hereby created in the State Treasury. Notwithstanding Section 13340 of the Government Code, the fund shall be continuously appropriated to the department for the purposes specified in this section.
(c) Subject to the conditions in this section, a maximum amount of one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) of the safety net care pool funds claimed and received by the state that are based on the certified public expenditures of the County of Los Angeles or its designated public hospitals shall be transferred to the South Los Angeles Medical Services Preservation Fund for each of the three project years, 2007–08, 2008–09, and 2009–10.
(1) In the event that the director determines that any amount is due to the County of Los Angeles under the demonstration project for services rendered during the portion of a project year during which Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital was operational, the amount deposited in the fund under this subdivision shall be reduced by a percentage determined by reducing 100 percent by the percentage reduction in the hospital’s baseline as determined under subdivision (c) of Section 14166.5 for that project year.
(2) If, in the aggregate, the federal medical assistance percentage of the certified public expenditures reported by the County of Los Angeles and its designated public hospitals under Section 14166.8, excluding those certified public expenditures reported under paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of Section 14166.8, in any project year do not exceed the amounts paid or payable to the county and its designated public hospitals in the aggregate under Section 14166.6, excluding disproportionate share payments funded with intergovernmental transfers, Section 14166.7, and subdivision (d) for the same project year, then the amount deposited in the fund under subdivision (c) shall be reduced by the amount of excess payments over the federal medical assistance percentage of certified public expenditures.
(d) Moneys in the South Los Angeles Medical Services Preservation Fund shall be distributed to the County of Los Angeles in amounts equal to the costs incurred by the county, including indirect costs associated with adequately maintaining the hospital building so that it can be reopened, in providing, or compensating other providers for, health services rendered to the uninsured population of South Los Angeles, including all of the following:
(1) Services provided in the multiservice ambulatory care center operating on the former Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital campus.
(2) Services rendered to patients in beds at other designated public hospitals operated by the County of Los Angeles that have been opened specifically for the purpose of serving patients that would have been served by the former Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital.
(3) Services rendered in the county-operated health center and the comprehensive health center formerly operated under Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital.
(4) Services rendered to the uninsured by other public or private health care providers for which the County of Los Angeles has agreed to pay under a contract with the provider as a result of the downsizing or closure of Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital.
(e) As a condition for receiving distributions from the South Los Angeles Medical Services Preservation Fund in any project year, the County of Los Angeles shall assure the director that it will not reduce the county’s ongoing, systemwide financial contribution to the county department of health services during that project year for health care services to the uninsured.
(f) No funds shall be available from the South Los Angeles Medical Services Preservation Fund for services rendered when a hospital on the former Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor Hospital campus is certified for Medi-Cal participation.
(g) If the full amount of the South Los Angeles Medical Services Preservation Fund for any project year is not distributed to the County of Los Angeles, based on the cost of services identified in subdivision (d) that were rendered during that project year, any remaining amounts shall revert to the Health Care Support Fund established pursuant to Section 14166.21.
(h) To the extent that the County of Los Angeles receives distributions from the South Los Angeles Medical Services Preservation Fund based on the cost of services rendered by county-operated providers, or based on payments made to private providers for services rendered to the uninsured population of South Los Angeles, the costs of the services rendered shall not be considered for purposes of any of the following determinations with respect to either the county or the private provider:
(1) Medi-Cal payments under the selective provider contracting program under Article 2.6 (commencing with Section 14081), including payments to distressed hospitals under Section 14166.23.
(2) Baseline amounts, or adjustments thereto, under Section 14166.5, 14166.13, or 14166.18.
(3) Any other payment under Medi-Cal or other health care program.
(i) This section shall be implemented only to the extent that the director determines that it will not result in the loss of federal funds under the demonstration project.
(Amended by Stats. 2009, Ch. 140, Sec. 213. (AB 1164) Effective January 1, 2010. Conditionally inoperative as provided in Section 14166.26 or in subd. (b) or (g) of Section 14166.2. Repealed on date prescribed in Section 14166.26 or in subd. (b) or (g) of Section 14166.2.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018