Search: 10/2009

California’s community hospitals and emergency rooms provide life-saving care to anyone needing it, despite their ability to pay for the health care services received. Last year, California's community hospitals provided more than $12 billion of uncompensated care.

California’s 430 hospitals and health systems are shouldering the financial burden of the government’s responsibility to provide care for some of our most vulnerable patients – seniors, the disabled, children and the under-insured. In fact, California’s hospitals provide billions dollars in uncompensated care annually, primarily due to the serious under-funding of the Medi-Cal and Medicare programs.

California’s hospital emergency rooms (ERs) see everyone who enters their doors, regardless of the health issue or one's ability to pay for services. In the last decade California has lost more than 70 community hospitals and emergency rooms. The remaining ERs are under ever-increasing pressure to care for a growing number of patients.

California’s hospitals and emergency rooms are there when you need them most – especially during this seasonal and H1N1 flu season. According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), people at highest risk for contracting the new H1N1 flu virus are pregnant women, children, people with chronic conditions, and healthcare and emergency medical service workers.

Hospitals across the state are making good progress in retrofitting and rebuilding efforts to meet the state’s seismic compliance requirements. However, a majority of hospitals (64%) will not be able to meet the looming 2013/2015 deadline.