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March 20, 2026: Santa Clara County FGOC Hearing, James Williams, Partnership with State Legislators

Fund Healthcare Not Billionaires13:32

Transcription

Our community cares. Our community recognizes and understands what's at stake. And sadly, I'm in a position where I have to bring very sobering news about what is at stake for our safety net here in Santa Clara County and the pivotal and essential partnership that we need from the state to do its piece to help ensure access to health care and food for all Californians.

We are very fortunate to have an excellent delegation representing us at the state level. They have been standing with us in this effort and we will need them to carry these critical essential asks forward as part of the upcoming legislative budget process. I'm going to take a few minutes to outline what we're talking about, what's at stake, and what the state can do to ensure that it does not exacerbate the harms foisted upon us by the federal government, but instead mitigates those harms.

And sadly, the governor's January budget proposal, as it currently stands, exacerbates the harms. It does not move us in the right direction. And so we are seeking support from the state administration and the legislature to ensure the continuity of these literally life-saving services for Californians.

HR1 imposes the largest cuts in our nation's history to Medicaid, which is medical here in California, and federal food assistance known as CalFresh here in California. Here in Santa Clara County. And you should know these numbers are even more staggering across the rest of California. One in four residents relies on medical for access to health care and 133,000 of our residents rely on CalFresh for access to food. For our core services that we deliver as your county government. Over half of our revenue as a health system depends on medical. The threats to that funding are multifaceted in HR1, meaning there's several different categories of cuts within that bill that layer over time that cumulatively represent an ongoing cut of over a billion dollar.

To make things worse, so far what we've gotten from the state level exacerbates these impacts. One of the most significant is the state's own cuts to the state-only medical program. More than 70,000 residents right here in Santa Clara County depend on this program for access to health care. The program is now frozen to new enrolles, will soon have monthly premiums, and will face a number of other significant impacts. There's also changes to the funding mechanisms that affect our community clinics and our own clinics that are an essential part of the delivery of primary care here in the community that could see a 70 to 80% drop in reimbursement for these essential services.

The governor's proposal doesn't address these harms, doesn't address the HR1 harms. We're very supportive of Senator Dazzo's SB1 1422, which is a bill that would seek to reverse some of the damage caused by state-only medical cuts.

So, I talked about the layering of these cuts over the next couple years, but it shows how even in this current fiscal year, fiscal year 2526 that we're now more than halfway through, we've already been hit with immediate budgetary impacts associated with HR1. That number grows in the upcoming fiscal year and the fiscal year thereafter. These are ongoing reductions to revenue, not one time. They require ongoing solutions. And so we are in the very difficult position of having to deal with these immediately as they affect us.

In addition to what we're seeing just on the health care side with medical, we also need to be aware of other state related changes that unfortunately from a timing perspective are hitting us at the exact same time. And that is a series of changes at the state level to behavioral health funding and programs that both change how much money counties get, what percentage share counties get, but also how counties are obligated to spend this funding, which will have a disproportionate and severe impact on our behavioral health department and also the incredible network of community providers who deliver those essential services. And will force shifts in service delivery away from certain categories like prevention towards other categories. These are state-directed policy changes that have been foisted on us on top of what we're seeing in federal cuts.

While this community doesn't take things lying down, we have committed and have pushed back with every lever and we have pushed every button we possibly can. Internally, as a county organization, we put in place a very aggressive hiring freeze. We have already moved forward with significant and painful budget cuts, including 200 million in budget solutions that the board adopted midyear this year to keep our budget in balance, largely involving our health system. We have moved forward with a litany of initiatives to increase revenues, reorganize services to try to mitigate impacts on the most vulnerable to the greatest extent possible.

We're not in Sacramento where I was testifying yesterday seeking a handout. We're in Sacramento because it is an essential and fundamental partnership in the delivery of these services. And we are not standing still as a county organization, but instead have been moving forward every initiative that we can. And of course, our community has stepped up as well with the leadership of our board of supervisors in placing an emergency measure on the ballot. Our voters here overwhelmingly stepped forward, adopted a sales tax increase at the highest amount we are able to bring forward to them under state law. And yet, as incredible as measure A is, and it is, and as much as it will mitigate and soften impacts that we otherwise will face, 330 million is not a billion make. And so, we have a daunting gap to continue to address. But we have moved forward with our prongs of our approach in a strategic, aggressive, and thoughtful way. And we will continue to do our piece, but today's conversation is about state partnership because we need the state to do its piece as well.

And what does that look like? The first piece is support for public hospital systems. There are not that many counties that still have public hospital systems, but the counties that do are where about 80% of the population of California lives. And these 6% of California's hospitals operate half of the state's trauma and burn centers and train over half of the state's physicians. Think about that. 6% of hospitals. And so the health care for all Californians is built on the backbone of this public healthcare delivery system that the state cannot afford to lose. At a bare minimum, it is essential for the legislature to undo something that happened in 2005, which was a state change that forced counties to fund the state match to draw down federal Medicaid dollars for inpatient hospital stays. This is a area where we are treated worse than private hospitals and we are seeking just parity with those private systems so that we can free up that local funding to help preserve the public hospital systems. In addition to that, it is essential for the state to make appropriate base rate adjustments to make up for the loss in specific revenue streams that public hospitals rely on for the delivery of essential care.

Second, we have to keep as many people as possible enrolled in medical. What does that mean? Well, it does mean doing everything the state can to make sure that there is as much automatic verification of eligibility as possible. As Supervisor Ellenberg shared though, the federal government is deliberately trying to throw people off of coverage. We're also going to need more handholding on the ground to help people jump through these hoops that are being deliberately created so people lose coverage. And we are urging the legislature in coalition with the California Welfare Directors Association, which is the consortium of social services directors from all of 58 counties in California, to support a modest investment in resources to help ensure that we are positioned to as much as possible hold people's hands through that process. For every person we can keep on coverage because we're talking primarily about the expansion population. For every person we can keep on coverage, the federal government covers 90% of the cost. So, it absolutely behooves the state to do everything possible to support all 58 counties.

The third piece is to deal with the reality that more people will be uninsured. After the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the state revisited its fiscal relationship with counties for coverage of indigent care programs and counties lost state funding for these services. Unfortunately, with an increase in uninsured, the state must revisit that fiscal arrangement and restore funding to counties to ensure that we can provide access to health care for those who lose coverage. And finally, for the state not to exacerbate these harms by making its own cuts in the state program and instead to preserve full access to that program so that all Californians can continue to receive access to life-saving healthcare.

There's two other pieces I wanted to note that are relevant to the state budget conversation. One is that there's a very problematic proposal in the governor's budget to cost to shift two counties more costs related to the IHSS program and to eliminate state funding for mobile crisis response. These are essential programs for the state to not back away from its funding commitments. Shifting these costs to counties will only put counties in a worse position for both these services and others. And relatedly, to restore funding for the HAP program and ensure that it's a stable source of funding to deal with the very real and present needs for homeless housing assistance, especially in the context of significant federal challenges there as well.

We have brought forward a package of comprehensive proposed solutions. We recognize that the state is in a challenging fiscal situation as well, although not nearly as challenging proportionately as that faced by counties. But what we do know is that California cannot look the other way and cannot wait to see what happens. Because once these types of services go away, you lose a multi-generational commitment and investment in access to care that we cannot afford to let happen as a state. So we look forward to the leadership of our delegation in this effort. We will continue to lead as a county organization with creativity, with strength, with a deep commitment to values, to doing everything that we can, but knowing that we cannot do it alone.