Inner City Hospital To Close in LA

The New York Times reports:

Federal regulators said Friday they're pulling $200 million in funding from a troubled hospital that serves the inner-city poor, condemning the facility to almost certain death.

The decision came after the county-run Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital failed two federal inspections.

Over the past few years, Los Angeles County tried to improve patient care through disciplining workers, reorganizing management, closing the trauma unit and reducing the number of inpatient beds to 48.

Yet Herb Kuhn, acting deputy administrator for the U.S. Centers of Medicare and Medical Services, said a federal inspection as recently as last month found "conditions at the facility have placed the health and safety of patients at great risk."

So while the hospital does serve the inner-city poor and homeless it also is a health risk to the very people they serve. Yet instead of trying to improve the hospital the government figures they might as well just shut it down. So a hospital that serves the poor and many people of color is going to be closed by the government because they figure that no hospital is better for the population?