EDITORIAL HEALTH HAZARD CLOSING OF HOSPITAL HERALDS BAD TIDINGS FOR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.

SADLY but predictably, Santa Paula Memorial Hospital has closed its doors. The shuttering of the medical center leaves residents of the semirural part of Ventura County without a nearby emergency room.

The closure of the 49-bed facility won't cast much of a ripple outside of the immediate area, but its passing is significant to note as yet another milestone on the road to ruin of our nation's health care system. And that's a phenomenon that's already started to affect everyone from California to New York.

The nation's health care system is hemorrhaging cash, and there seems little that all the brightest medical and political brains seem able to do to stop it. Medical costs are skyrocketing, both for the public and the providers. More and more Americans lose health insurance coverage every year, and hospitals all around the country are going broke, closing down or scaling back services.

Last summer, the San Fernando Valley got an object lesson in this crisis when Granada Hills Medical Center was forced to shut down due to out- of-control costs. Earlier in the year, High Desert Hospital in the Antelope Valley was converted to an outpatient center to cut costs and to keep from closing altogether.

The constant increases in insurance premiums are pricing individuals, companies and even government agencies out of the market. About one-sixth of Americans, or 43.6 million as of 2002, don't have health insurance. That's an increase of more than 14 percent from just the year before, a disturbing trend that's only spreading.

And the burdens on health care providers, from thousands of dollars in malpractice insurance to simply not getting paid, are making health care an unattractive career choice.

All of these factors are squeezing medicine from every side. And now we're starting to see how the health care crisis is affecting all aspects of our lives. The recent transportation and grocery strikes that hit Southern California were driven by disputes on who should pay for the soaring hikes in premiums.

These aren't headaches that will go away on their own, and it will take more than an aspirin to cure them.

The hospital closures and rising costs are like cancers eating away at the core of American health care. Unless our elected officials in Washington start engaging in a real and honest discussion about how to overhaul the system, it will only get weaker and weaker until it finally collapses.