New L.A. County health services chief Dr. Mitchell Katz said Tuesday that overcrowding at County-USC hospital will not improve any time soon, according to the Associated Press.

County-USC hospital (Creative Commons)

The L.A. Times reported that this statement contradicts previous assertion by former L.A. health chief Carol Meyer, who said that more patients would opt for private health care once they received coverage when the bulk of the national health care reform laws go into effect in 2014. 

ABC7 reports that County-USC is “dangerously overcrowded.” 65 percent of the time in February 2011, compared with 15 percent in December 2010. Hospital wait times have risen to an average of 10 hours.

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