EDITORIAL HOLDING HOSPITALS HOSTAGE L.A. EMERGENCY ROOMS MUST NOT FALL VICTIM TO WAR-FUNDING DEBATE.WHILE Congress and the White House carry on their Iraq war-funding drama, public hospitals here in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County may become the victim. "Public hospitals," you ask, "what do they have to do with Iraq?" The answer is nothing, of course, but in the bizarre way Washington does business, some $500 million in Medicaid Medicaid, national health insurance program in the United States for low-income persons; established in 1965 with passage of the Social Security Amendments and now run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. payments for California hospitals -- $200 million for L.A. County -- are tied up in the Iraq war Iraq War: see under Persian Gulf Wars. Iraq War or Second Persian Gulf War Brief conflict in 2003 between Iraq and a combined force of troops largely from the U.S. and Great Britain; and a subsequent U.S. bill. So while the two sides posture posture /pos·ture/ (pos´choor) the attitude of the body.pos´tural pos·ture n. 1. A position of the body or of body parts. 2. and preen over Iraq, milking their dispute for all it's worth before settling on a sensible compromise, the fate of local emergency rooms may well be at risk. And when Democrats and Republicans eventually do come to a resolution, there's no guarantee the hospital funding will even make the final legislation. By all means, let Congress and the president fight it out over crafting a sound strategy on Iraq. But let's not Let's Not is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in Boston University Graduate Journal in December 1954. It was written for no payment as a favour to the journal, and later appeared in the collection Buy Jupiter. let international politics get in the way of pressing domestic needs. |
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