Affordability

About Affordability

Health care is a basic human need, one that Californians rely on to live, grow, and prosper. Unfortunately, the cost of care has become too high for many working families. For years, California’s hospitals have made headway toward controlling costs. To ensure care for every Californian, the entire health care field must tighten its belt — insurance companies, physicians, labor unions, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and more.

Improving affordability is a priority for California hospitals — but with nearly two-thirds of health care spending occurring outside of hospitals, solving this challenge will take a combined effort from the entire health care system. To move toward our shared goals of affordable, equitable, and high-quality health care, hospitals work closely with the Office of Health Care Affordability.

Key Priorities for 2026 Shaping Up

As your association looks to the coming year to advance policies that support the critical services California hospitals provide, three key areas are coming into sharper focus: 

Courts Must Intervene to Protect Californians’ Health Care

Yesterday, CHA took a critical step to push back on actions taken by the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) that are threatening access to care, putting health care workers’ jobs in jeopardy, impeding efforts to improve health equity, and risking the quality of care Californians receive.