I find myself lately striving to find optimism in a world that progressively feels more chaotic and stressful. The work we do as primary care physicians is stressful at baseline without the added stress of financial threats to our patients from HR1 and the current geo-political stressors of the day. Although, current federal health policy continues to threaten physician reimbursement, access to care, funding of NIH grants, and national public health standards; locally within Los Angeles County strong work is underway in an effort to abate the effects of current federal policy at a grassroots level. A coalition led by St. John’s Community Health and other FQHCs has drafted a proposed half cent sales tax increase for a five-year period that will be voted on as Measure ER on the upcoming June 2, 2026 ballot. This tax would increase the sales tax rate in LA County from 9.75% to 10.25% in order to generate an estimated annual revenue of $1 billion. According to a spending plan approved by the LA County Supervisors, the funds would primarily be used to help keep safety-net clinic and public hospital doors open within our underserved communities and would help to fund our public health department.
In Los Angeles County, over 3.8 million residents are enrolled in Medi-Cal with a potential loss of enrollees by 1.1 million by 2028 based on an analysis by U.C. Berkeley Labor Center. The LA County Supervisors has approved the ballot Measure ER by a vote of 4-1 with recognition of the drastic threats to healthcare and public health that are inevitable without finding other revenue sources to compensate for the loss of federal funding. These efforts at the county level give me hope of opportunities for Los Angeles to come together to meet the need to keep our patients safe and our clinic doors open.
I hope that you will be able to make it to our upcoming LAAFP event on Saturday, May 30 at Topgolf. In addition to CME opportunities, we will also have opportunities to further learn about this measure and other efforts locally with a county legislative update from Dr. Hector Flores, the current Los Angeles County Medical Association President and fellow family physician. It will be an opportunity for us to learn, be inspired, and play. After all, we all need more play and joy in our lives!
In solidarity,
Stacey
