In health care, bigger isn’t always better. Hospitals are merging without oversight and health systems are getting larger, but our care is getting more expensive and harder to access.
Health care isn't just a business.
Businesses prioritize profits. When health systems and hospitals acquire other hospitals and medical groups without oversight, they can cut services that are not considered profitable or are duplicative for the larger health system - but for patients, this can mean services are no longer available at their local hospital.
- These eliminated services have included trauma centers, emergency rooms, and cardiac services.
- This has a severe impact on residents in rural California, where patients are increasingly being forced to travel long distances for quality care.
Religious hospital chains are merging at alarmingly high rates.
These religiously-affiliated hospital systems require the facilities that they purchase to adhere to their restrictions on the provision of reproductive and gender-affirming care, reducing access to vital care for California communities.
- Despite Californians overwhelmingly passing an amendment to enshrine the right to reproductive health care in the state constitution, simply having this right does not necessarily mean that all of us have access.
- The growth of restrictive hospitals is reducing the number of facilities where Californians can access the full breadth of reproductive health care and, for some communities, there is only one option for this type of care nearby. That option could be eliminated by a merger.
- Catholic health care providers operate approximately 52 hospitals in the state of California. These facilities provide needed care to lower-income populations, but severely limit reproductive and gender-affirming care.
- In addition to the proliferation of Catholic hospital networks in California, Seventh-day Adventist facilities are also expanding their footprint. Seventh-day Adventist Church policy opposes abortion, assisted suicide, and the "homosexual lifestyle."
Less competition in health care means higher costs.
Health prices in California have less to do with the cost of providing the care, the quality of care, or the health outcomes, than with the relative size and market power of health providers to be able to charge whatever they can.
- Robust research shows that mergers and takeovers do not improve quality or equity in our care but instead drive higher prices and provide less options for consumers.
- Due to mergers in Northern California’s health care market, care in the region is nearly 2x more expensive than care in Southern California.
- While hospitals point to patient protections, worker ratios, seismic standards, and more for higher costs, those requirements are all the same statewide. What is different—and correlates with significantly higher prices--is consolidation.
- These increasing health costs drive up our insurance premiums and, with health coverage taking bigger chunks out of our paychecks, this puts a further squeeze on household income.
Merger oversight protects patients.
Legislative action, through the enactment of AB 1091 (Wood), would provide needed oversight to ensure public scrutiny over this harmful trend and ensure that when any hospital and health systems do merge, it is done in the best interest of the Californians they serve.
The California State Legislature must act now to #ProtectCAPatients.