Those with coverage must typically contend with the limited choices and treatments available through managed care. Those without coverage typically face more frequent and severe health problems. According to the Health Atlas, uninsured persons are three times more likely not to seek treatment for diabetes or hypertension. Those seeking treatment face physical and other access problems, including to emergency centers or public clinics, both of which have faced county funding cutbacks. In the private arena, during the 1990s the number of emergency hospitals in the Los Angeles area dropped by 20 percent, and the number of trauma centers by 60 percent.
Many families also lack provisions for child care.
It is only eight years since riots engulfed large portions of the poorer areas of Los Angeles County in the wake of the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers that beat Rodney King. As the recent articles on social inequality by the Los Angeles Times show, there is increasing concern in corporate and political circles that the terrible conditions that produced the 1992 explosion have only worsened. For example, labor economist Stanford Jacoby of the University of California at Los Angeles stresses the risks of increasing social instability. Skyrocketing rents and the unequal distribution of wealth became the key issues in the recent San Francisco mayoral election. On the eve of the new millennium this is the state of affairs in California, the most populated state in the richest country on earth.