Labor and health care activists are weighing in on the state budget fight with a new television ad seeking to avoid further cuts to health care. Following is the text of the ad and an analysis:
•CARMEN MORALES-BOARD: In Sacramento, a 10 percent budget cut for doctors and hospitals is just a number on a spreadsheet.
•KIT de YOUNG: But around Fresno, more across-the-board cuts would be just devastating.
•VIRGIL AIROLA: Threatening the only Level One trauma center between L.A. and Sacramento.
•de YOUNG: Putting people across the Central Valley at risk.
•MORALES-BOARD: But if our legislators do their jobs …
•AIROLA: … then doctors and nurses can keep doing ours. Stop the health care cuts.
•MORALES-BOARD: Or we'll all pay the price.
•ANALYSIS: Backers of the ad denouncing cuts in health care programs have decided to debut the spot in Fresno.
Besides being the largest media market in the San Joaquin Valley, the Fresno area just happens to be in the districts of the Legislature's two Republican leaders, Mike Villines in the Assembly and Dave Cogdill in the Senate.
The 30-second ad, by a coalition of labor and health care advocates, gives starring roles to three Valley health care workers: Virgil Airola, a Fresno doctor; Kit de Young, a licensed vocational nurse from Visalia; and Carmen Morales-Board, a nurse practitioner from Bakersfield.
Earlier this year, lawmakers slashed Medi-Cal reimbursement rates by 10 percent. Providers are now trying to reverse the action and prevent more cuts, arguing that they can't afford to continue offering services at the lower rate.
Republicans say they would prefer to restrict eligibility to only the neediest patients rather than cut doctors' rates.
Most experts conclude the cuts, whether or not they result in closure of a trauma center, will hurt health care services in the Central Valley, which is already experiencing a doctor shortage.
Call E.J. Schultz, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5541.
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