EDITORIAL : FOOT-DRAGGING DISEASE; L.A. COUNTY MUST DO A BETTER JOB OF ENROLLING THE POOR IN HMOS.

LOS Angeles County's drive to enroll poor people in managed health care plans - a change that promises to improve care and reduce long-term costs - desperately needs a strong dose of better management.

According to county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the Department of Health Services isn't aggressively pursuing ways to enroll eligible individuals in the San Fernando Valley, an area with a high rate of uninsured residents.

Director of Health Services Mark Finucane has acknowledged that some of his employees may be dragging their feet on public-private partnerships in order to protect their own entrenched bureaucratic empires.

This is totally unacceptable. The county must get in step with the times by enrolling people who are eligible for Medi-Cal - mostly welfare recipients and working people with very low incomes - in health maintenance organizations affiliated with the county's Community Health Program.

That means that Finucane must be prepared to take disciplinary action against employees who put their own job interests ahead of the needs of the people that the county is required to serve - and the taxpayers who are paying for these services.

Likewise, it's time to take a hard look at state regulations that might be getting in the way of progress.

A good candidate for scrutiny by every member of the San Fernando Valley area legislative delegation is a state rule that individuals must live within 10 miles of an affiliated hospital if they are to be members of a county health maintenance organization.

This one-size-fits-all rule in effect excludes people in much of the Valley and many other areas of the county because they don't live within 10 miles of a participating hospital. This makes no sense at all.

The best way to improve health care for the poor is to strengthen public-private partnerships. Government bureaucrats found dragging their feet on this subject should be given their walking papers.