Bad news for hospitals across California as new bill strips important tool to relieve debt

An assembly bill aimed at creating forgiveness loans for hospital in debt has been crushed even before the public had a chance to voice its opinion in the November elections.

The legislation’s author, District 27 Assembly member Esmeralda Soria, revised the existing Assembly Bill 1923 and amended it with an initiative to continue a half-cent sales tax in Fresno County, which would raise funds for road improvements.

The original AB1923 –– Distressed Hospital Loan Program –– has been replaced with “Better Roads, Safe Streets” initiative for the November ballot.

“There are roads and sidewalks and all the, you know, infrastructure that we see out our window to be repaired,” Assembly member Esmeralda Soria said, as reported by YourCentralValley.com

The hospital loan program would have helped hospitals across the Golden State whereas the focus on better roads is hyper-specific and only limited to Fresno county.

“It’s focused on roads in Fresno, but is now going to impact hospitals across the entire state of California, which is disappointing,” CEO of Kaweah Health, Marc Mertz told the news outlet.

However, Soria doesn’t look at it as one issue being more important than the other in entirety but about the need of the hour. “[AB]1923 was positioned to be the best vehicle for the level of urgency,” Soria said.

She said she chose to gut the hospital loan program because the state has already approved about $130 million in hospital grants this year.

Mertz notes that with 62% of his patients enrolled in Medi-Cal, the hospital struggles to afford California’s healthcare minimum wage mandates for its staff.

“California has among the lowest Medicaid rates – we call it Medi-Cal here in California – amongst the country, but I would argue that we have some of the highest costs,” Mertz said.

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