Los Angeles County health budget crisis (1995)
Supervisors cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the county health department to close a budget deficit. The county closed clinics and temporarily shut its busiest trauma center, and thousands of public health workers lost jobs.
Emergency rooms strained as the safety net shrank; the crisis drew federal relief and forced the county to restructure how it delivered health services.
The county rebuilt a health care network under direct county control, a model it is now applying to homeless services.
Shows the pattern when Los Angeles County cuts a safety-net function: mass layoffs first, then a county-run rebuild.
