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:
- Protecting Medicaid/Medicare financing — These vital funding sources for hospitals must be preserved and enhanced where possible, including: securing approval for the next Hospital Fee Program, reinstating resources for disproportionate share hospitals, reinstating efficient flexibilities like Hospital-at-Home and telehealth, maximizing state resources for health care, protecting health coverage for as many Californians as possible, and more.
- Holding the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) to account — CHA’s lawsuit against the Office of Health Care Affordability — which alleges that the office did not follow the legally mandated process to increase affordability by ignoring the impact of its decisions on access, equity, and quality — is a necessary step, but more is needed. CHA will continue its strong advocacy directly with the OHCA board and with state policymakers, driving home messages around how board decisions will negatively affect patients, communities, and hospitals. At the right time, politically, CHA will look for additional opportunities to course-correct OHCA’s work.
- Battling ballot initiatives — CHA will work to pass The Health Care Union Transparency, Accountability & Union Member Right to Vote Act, which will give many California health care workers a greater say in how their hard-earned dues dollars are spent. Other ballot battles also loom, including the compensation cap initiative brought forth by SEIU-UHW that threatens the hospital leadership needed to meet the health care needs of millions of Californians.
Each of these key areas will be necessary for hospitals to survive, adapt, and grow in a new, more difficult environment for health care at the federal and state levels (CHA’s board will formally approve the association’s priorities at its December meeting). And in addition to these efforts, there will be dozens of bad bills to defend against; opportunities to support legislation to rein in harmful, profit-driven insurer practices; and more.
Supporting all of this will be a comprehensive communications strategy to deliver messages to policymakers about the headwinds facing hospitals, the impact of those headwinds on your ability to meet the needs of those you care for, and the human toll of inaction on their part.
We’ll ask you to weigh in directly with your representatives at the local, state, and federal level — to reinforce messages about what you’re facing in the coming months and years and to educate them about issues they may not be familiar with, such as OHCA, the seismic standard mandate, and your reliance on Medicaid financing. Stay close to your inboxes as we share these opportunities for you to connect directly with those making policy decisions throughout the year.
We will also be ready as always with a slate of policy options for regulatory reform or broader system reform should a new political window open to change.
