Read only the headlines, and health care looks like a story about scarcity. Margins are thinner. Workforce pipelines are strained. Regulatory demands keep expanding. Patients arrive with needs more complex than any single institution was designed to meet. And in a lot of boardrooms, the hard questions about 2027 are arriving faster than the answers.
Just over a year ago, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), ushering in monumental changes for California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. Nearly 400 days since the legislation was signed into law, its impact on hospitals and the communities they serve is only beginning to take shape — and Hospital Council is mobilizing to meet the moment.
Earlier this year, a proposal began to take shape that would have created a brand-new local emergency medical services agency (LEMSA) dedicated solely to Placer County.
This month, Californians caught a rare glimpse of the work hospitals do every day to stay ready for the unexpected. From the fire at a Medline warehouse in Tracy, to the security and surge planning taking place for the FIFA World Cup matches in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the value of preparation and communication has been on full display. For hospital leaders, these moments are a reminder that readiness is never accidental — it is built, funded, and championed long before any crisis arrives.
With last week’s primary election in the rearview mirror, focus now turns to Nov. 3. While the question remains as to who will be California’s next governor, perhaps just as significant for California hospitals will be the outcomes of two key ballot initiatives. With five months to go until Election Day, we are asking all member hospitals to join two campaign coalitions today to help ensure success in November.
California’s wildfire season is once again underway, bringing renewed focus to hospital preparedness and operational continuity during public safety power shut-off (PSPS) events.
The Hospital Council Board of Directors held its first in-person meeting of the year last week, setting the stage for the coming months of critically important advocacy efforts.
From county to county and coast to coast, hospital leaders know one thing to be true: Hospitals are the backbone of their communities.
At its core, health care is about people.
From California’s Central Valley to the far northern border of our state, rural hospitals dot the health care landscape — and few understand their significance to the broader hospital field as deeply as Hospital Council and its members.
