Assembly Health Committee, Tuesday, January 27, 2026

27 Januar 2026

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Assembly Health Committee Di., 27. Jan. 2026 California State Assembly

32:09 - 38:28

Redner 1

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Assembly Health Committee's informational hearing on the devastating impact of federal divestment in California's health care system. Before we begin, it feels very important to acknowledge the events of this past weekend. The federal dollars which once supported health care for working families are now being funneled into mass deportation operations, operations that resulted in tragic murders by federal agents of Renee Goode, Alex Preti in Minnesota, Silviero Villegas Gonzalez in Illinois, and Keith Porter here in California by federal agents. This is where our health care funding is going. Now, let me be direct so that we can be clear and clear eyed about what we're facing.

H. R. One cuts will result in about a trillion dollars from Medicaid nationwide being lost. For California, that means tens of billions of dollars every single year stripped from our health care safety net. Up to 2,000,000 Californians stand to lose Medi Cal coverage.

Hundreds of thousands of people will be priced out of buying their own coverage through Covered California. And we have to acknowledge that in the face of rising costs and state budget challenges, while facing these federal threats, that the state of California made a number of state budget cuts to Medi Cal that will limit coverage. We also will be weakening our overall robust health care infrastructure in so doing. And we will be moving away from the ideals of universal health care coverage which we embodied in Health Care for All policies. When people lose coverage, families delay care, medical debt rises, chronic conditions worsen, and people end up sicker and more expensive to treat.

In the past several months, we in the Legislature, with the Speaker, members of the health committee and members throughout the Legislature, came together to discuss across the state of California, from Northern California to Southern California, in urban and rural communities alike, holding care roundtable conversations with providers, labor leaders, community advocates and hospital administrators, what we would do about this moment. Much of what we've heard during those sessions in our statewide discussions will be captured here today during this informational hearing. I want to thank my colleagues for co hosting these events throughout the state, across California, and I thank many of them for being here today, both members of the committee and other legislators who are committed and championing our opportunity to preserve health care and our health care infrastructure in this moment for their communities and California at large. I want to welcome, as a part of that, Assemblymember Arons, who will join the committee as a standing committee member. And across all of these conversations, we've heard a consistent message that has emerged: Federal policy changes are creating instability, raising health care costs, and California families are losing access to care.

And people are scared. The damage goes even beyond coverage losses. Our hospitals and our clinics face tens of billions of dollars lost in revenue. And we know our safety net providers, the ones serving our most vulnerable communities, will be hit first and hardest. But California cannot sit idle while Trump's Congress dismantles our health care system.

We have a responsibility to act decisively, and we will. California must fight to protect access, fight to defend affordable care, and stand up for families squeezed by reckless federal decisions. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues and the expert witnesses testifying today to help guide our path forward as we build a broad coalition and a serious legislative response to this federal tailspin. Thank you. With that, we will have the first panel come forward.

Members, this first panel is designed to provide a reality check about the high stakes of this moment and put things in perspective. I want to thank members of this informational hearing for coming forward. I want to welcome Assembly Member Rogers, who participated and was an anchor participant or anchor lead for our health care roundtable, as well as Assembly Member Soria, who did as well. And thank you to our standing committee members, as well as Assembly Member Thank you. With that I just have your first name stuck in my hand.

With that, we will move on to the first panel. Most of our panelists are using slides today, but background materials are available on Assembly Health's website. You can access these by going to assembly.ca.gov, choose Committees and click on Health Committee from the Health Committee's website, click on Hearings and Info Hearings, all the materials will be posted here. And we are honored to be joined by a number of panelists today who are sharing their information perspectives with us, many of whom have traveled a long way to be with us. We request each of the panelists to stick to the allotted time so we can hear from everyone and have time for some dialogue.

We plan to provide time for member questions after each panel, and we will allow for public comments after all the panels have been concluded. And Assembly Member Jessica Coloza, thank you for anchoring one of the roundtables that we had as well. I will ask each panelist to introduce themselves as part of their testimony, with Doctor. Hernandez, Sandra Hernandez kicking us off. Thank you.

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