WEEKLY EDITORIAL RECAP

TUESDAY

BOXING WELFARE

Zeta Gorres is like a lot of patients at University Medical Center, Clark County's only public hospital. He has piled up about $500,000 in bills since he suffered a traumatic brain injury, and he won't be able to cover all the costs. ...

Mr. Gorres is quite different from every other UMC trauma patient in at least one respect. Better known as Z "The Dream" Gorres, the 27-year-old is a bantamweight professional boxer. His injuries were sustained in a Nov. 13 fight. ...

State law requires promoters to provide only $50,000 worth of health insurance for each fighter in the ring. That amount might cover a single trauma surgery. It's enough "99 percent of the time," said Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada Athletic Commission, but woefully inadequate in cases such as Mr. Gorres'. ...

The Nevada Athletic Commission can't expect the public, especially in this economy, to cover the costs of caring for injured fighters. The state must raise the minimum insurance requirement for professional bouts to $1 million per fighter or require promoters to pay into a pool that covers boxers' medical bills for catastrophic injuries suffered in the ring.

FRIDAY

REINING IN COSTS

Tuesday's vote was a shot at the county's bargaining groups and their unsustainable, contracted wages and benefits, which consume two-thirds of the general fund and allow administrators no flexibility in reducing expenses. ...

The county will seek to cut salaries, eliminate pay raises and halt the overtime excesses that enrich so many public employees. If the unions don't bend, hundreds of workers -- perhaps more than 1,000 -- will be laid off by year's end.

Tuesday's vote was just the opening bell. ...

Now it gets nasty.