A recent piece in the Orange County Register that took a deep dive into California’s grocery prices calls to mind compelling parallels with the state’s ongoing push for lower health care costs.
The piece, penned by the president and CEO of the California Grocers Association, contrasts the publicly stated desire of California lawmakers to make groceries more affordable with their enactment of policies — year after year — that only serve to drive prices higher.
Something feels off.
As the author writes, “Let’s be clear: California political leaders say they want to help lower grocery prices for shoppers, but their actions tell us the opposite.”
A similar dynamic takes place in the world of health care.
The state’s Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) purports to want to reduce health care expenses for Californians, but not a single one of its actions to date actually addresses the drivers of health care costs — like pharmaceutical spending, labor expenses, or the growing cost of compliance with federal and state regulations.
Instead of focusing on support to reduce regulations for hospitals — and therefore actually lowering how much it costs to deliver care — OHCA has instead simply told hospitals that they are no longer allowed to keep pace with general inflation, and therefore must cut services to reduce health care spending.
This is where lawmakers come in. Despite their stated desire to help make California more affordable, a spate of bills advancing through the Senate and Assembly this year would add to — not reduce — the amount of money it takes to provide health care in California.
One piece of legislation would require hospitals to presume that staff are eligible for workers’ compensation benefits, without any proof that an employee had gotten sick at work — shifting all of this unproven added cost on to hospitals and the health care system. Another would mandate that hospitals maintain a daily on-call list of 10% of registered nurse staff, requiring even higher pay for an unnecessary number of on-call nurses.
Dozens of other bills being debated will only add to the cost of health care, and with state requirements like these piling on year after year, a mountain of additional expenses is forming at the same time hospitals are bracing for unprecedented Medicaid and Medicare cuts.
All of this is on top of a requirement that every hospital building in California be fully operational following a major earthquake by Jan. 1, 2030, or be forced by law to close. That construction alone is projected to cost more than $100 billion statewide.
How, exactly, is any of this supposed to bring the cost of health care down for everyday Californians?
With more than half of all California hospitals losing money every year to care for patients, federal lawmakers working to cut resources for health care, state policymakers adding to expenses year after year, and California’s OHCA regulators shrugging their shoulders at the input costs of health care, the numbers just aren’t adding up.
It’s fuzzy math at best. At worst, it’s a series of disjointed, siloed policies that will ultimately break down a health care system that should be the envy of the nation — but is instead becoming more hollowed out by the day.
