Pam Marino here, thinking about how most people in life just want to be heard, to know that someone is listening, and taking our concerns, hopes and dreams seriously.
For years, people in Monterey County have fretted over the high cost of health care. Some have done more than just fret. After landing in the hospital they subsequently found themselves living with the heavy weight of medical debt.
They may have complained to the hospital about a bill, or an employer because of high insurance premiums, or, if they belong to a union, to their leaders. Those options didn’t seem to lead to tangible solutions.
Today there is a place where they can go and be heard by people who have some power to rein in health care costs in California, the Health Care Affordability Board, part of the Office of Health Care Affordability, created by the California Legislature in 2022.
Since the earliest meetings of the OHCA board last year, Monterey County workers have been showing up to share their stories of hospital bills they can’t pay or how they had to leave the county to receive treatments or have their babies.
“Please do what you can to help people just like me,” said Clementina Gonzalez in Spanish, a hotel housekeeper from Marina, who drove three hours to appeal to the board in May 2023. Despite having insurance, Gonzalez had to be hospitalized and wound up with a $10,000 hospital bill she couldn’t pay, straining her family’s limited resources and ruining her credit.
You can learn more about the OHCA Board and some of the reasons behind the high cost of hospitals in Monterey County in a story reported and written by Editor Sara Rubin and myself in this week’s paper. As we share in the story, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and Natividad are in the top 10 percent of the most expensive hospitals in the state, according to data from the RAND Corporation. Salinas Valley Health is in the top 15 percent.
Statewide hospital costs keep rising year after year, which is why in April the OHCA Board made a preliminary decision to cap hospital spending for the next five years, beginning with a 3.5 percent cap in 2025 and 2026, a 3.2 percent cap in 2027 and 2028, landing at a 3 percent cap in 2029. That decision will be formalized with a vote this Wednesday, June 26.
If you’re interested in watching, or sharing your own story of how high health care costs have impacted your life, the meeting starts at 10am. It’s available to watch at hcai.ca.gov/public-meetings.
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