AltaMed Government Relations

Initiatives

AltaMed Health Services Corporation
-SUPPORTS-
Emergency and Medical Services Initiative
November 2, 2004 Election

What is the Emergency Medical Care Initiative?
This initiative will ensure that emergency medical care is available when your or your family need it most. It will keep local hospitals, emergency rooms and trauma centers open in communities throughout California. It will upgrade our 9-1-1 emergency telephone system. It provides equipment and training to firefighters and paramedics who respond first to emergencies. It supports local health clinics so our emergency rooms and trauma centers are reserved for true emergencies.

Why do we need this initiative?
California’s emergency and trauma system is overwhelmed, under-funded and no longer able to provide lifesaving care. In the last decade over 60 hospital emergency rooms and trauma centers have closed. Many more hospitals emergency rooms and trauma centers in California will close. If these facilities close children, families and seniors will lose access to doctors, nurses, critical medical equipment, medicines and essential emergency care. Fewer hospitals and emergency rooms mean longer ambulance rides for victims of heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and other medical emergencies. For many emergency patients, rapid response treatment is the difference between life and death.

How does this crisis affect me and my family?
Emergency rooms throughout California are severely overcrowded. Patients face long lines and wait times. When emergency rooms reach full capacity, ambulances are often diverted to other hospitals. Some ambulances must try 3 or 4 hospitals before finding an emergency room or trauma center that can accept their patient.

How does this initiative improve emergency care in my community?
The funds raised by this initiative go directly to local hospitals, emergency rooms and trauma centers to ensure you, your family and your neighbors have access to rapid-response care, close to home. This initiative will make sure your local hospital emergency room and trauma center are staffed with highly skilled doctors, nurses and healthcare providers that have access to state-of-the-art medical equipment. The initiative provides funds to equip and train firefighters and paramedics so that the first ones on the scene of an accident, disaster or medical emergency are prepared to provide life-saving treatment.

Will this initiative upgrade our 9-1-1 system?
Yes. This initiative will provide additional equipment to 9-1-1 call centers so they can provide better service. For example, our existing 9-1-1 system cannot locate emergency calls from cell phone users. We need to upgrade our 9-1-1 cell phone callers during an emergency.

How much will this initiative cost me?
The initiative funds emergency medical care with a 3% surcharge on telephone usage. This is a modest increase to the 9-1-1 telephone surcharge that customers currently pay. Residential telephone customers will pay a maximum of 50 cents per month. The average cell phone user will only pay about 90 cents per month. All out-of state calls are exempt from the surcharge. Senior citizens and others on basic lifeline phone rate are 100% exempt from the cost.

How can I be sure the money will be spent properly?
The money from this initiative can only be used to preserve emergency medical care and none of the money can be taken away by the legislature to be used for other purposes. Every dollar will be audited annually and must be spent to keep local hospital emergency rooms and trauma centers open and accessible for emergency patients.

Who supports the Emergency Medical Care Initiative?
Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and firefighters collected over 900,000 signed petitions from California voters to put this initiative on the ballot. Now thousands of these emergency healthcare providers in communities around the state are working hard to pass this initiative.