LA sets fines for homeless patient dumping

As big an advocate as I am for the downtrodden and disenfranchised, fining hospitals who discharge patients anywhere but 'home' is shortsighted. Such a move by LA incorrectly places duty on an already overburdened healthcare system where no sch duty rightfully exists. Simply. the impediment to provide safe shelter is not the onus of a hospital alone, but rather the requirement of a just and honorable society. A more noble and thoughtful action by LA would be to engage the community as a whole to devise solutions for shelter for those in need. I suspect that after a few council members or prominent LA citizens are denied hospital admission because beds are filled with healthy but homeless individuals that this myopic law will be repealed. For the sake of anyone acutely ill or injured, let us hope so.

I can't believe it! This legislation is placing the homeless issue on an already overwhelmed healthcare system. To tell hospitals that they are now in the housing of homeless which is essentially what is being said is a decision that is going to negatively impact an overcrowded system. Don't tell me that it won't impact bed capability; I see it daily already with mental health patients. The onus needs to be on legislation to create shelters for this unfortunate population. I get so frustrated with the ignorance to this significant problem. Maybe now when legislatures who need a hospital bed can't get them because hospitals are "sheltering" the homeless perhaps we can work together to find the solution.

Placing the burden of housing on hospitals that take in the (in most cases) indigent and mentally ill homeless populations of the local skid row will place a huge financial burden on public hospitals that are already on the brink of financial disaster.
I am old enough to remember the late 1960's and early 1970's when New York City disgorged the mentally ill from the state hospitals onto the streets with little or no medical follow-up in place. To see what it was like, you just need to look at the situation in San Francisco today.
The homeless mentally ill need hospitalization and medical care, not housing.
Howard