Rocky gets a pat on the back
OK, so City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has taken some hits lately. There was his wife's suspended license, his year-long lack of car insurance and city staff baby-sitting his kids. But the clouds parted briefly for him on Tuesday when filmaker and provocateur Michael Moore gave Rocky a big shout out for prosecuting Kaiser Permanente for patient dumping on Skid Row.
During a press conference on the steps of City Hall to promote the release of his documentary, Sicko, on the nation's health care crisis, Moore singled out Delgadillo's effort to penalize medical providers for dropping homeless patients (some still wearing their hospital gowns) downtown.
"I'm so proud of the city attorney of this city for going after (Kaiser) on criminal charges," Moore said. "These are large million-dollar and in some cases billion-dollar hospital corporations, and to treat people like that, well, it's not the way we were raised was it?"
Under a settlement with Delgadillo's office, Kaiser agreed to establish new discharge rules and protocols for handling the release of homeless patients.