UCLA May Save King-Drew Hospital for LA County
September 29, 2006 - First, he signed a bill encouraging, but not requiring Los Angeles County Supervisors to organize a task force to evaluate the finances and operations of the county's health care system. Now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he'll look into ways of keeping the county's embattled Martin Luther King, Jr.-Drew Medical Center open. Los Angeles County Supervisors seem to be leaning toward handing King-Drew over to management at the much better-run Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. The County Health Services Department will make its own recommendations, Tuesday. Scandal-plagued King-Drew recently failed a do-or-die inspection by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and will lose all $200 million of its federal funding by the end of the end of the year. There has been talk of selling it to a private company or turning the hospital into an out-patient clinic.