The Issue
On June 30, 2026, UCLA Health let its contract with Health Care LA end, cutting off about 9,000 low-income Medi-Cal patients from UCLA care teams, specialists, and treatments they depend on.
9,000+
Medi-Cal patients lost access to UCLA care when the Health Care LA contract ended
4,000+
of them are children with complex medical needs
Sources: Health Care LA, IPA, press release, Sept. 2, 2026; Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2026
Interrupted care despite grave need for ongoing treatment
Since 2009, a contract between UCLA Health and Health Care LA (HCLA) gave HCLA’s Medi-Cal patients access to UCLA primary and specialty care. HCLA is a nonprofit independent practice association anchored by more than 30 federally qualified health centers and community clinics that serve between 600,000 and 730,000 low-income Medi-Cal members across LA County. This contract enabled such patients to receive cutting-edge, high-acuity, and life-saving treatment through the many resources available at UCLA Health that are otherwise not available at non-academic institutions.
UCLA let that contract end on June 30, 2026. According to HCLA, the consequences of this contract ending include:
- Patients with scheduled appointments and valid authorizations have had those appointments canceled
- Current Medi-Cal patients are having their care at UCLA “wound down” over the next year or so, regardless of the level of care they currently require
- If a Medi-Cal patient needs the high level of care uniquely offered by UCLA, they must go through a formal review and selection process
- Patients that were previously waiting for appointments with specialists must restart their search, as such specialist appointments no longer exist for them
HCLA has announced a formal complaint against UCLA Health with the California Attorney General and is calling for an investigation into patient safety.
Sources: Health Care LA, IPA, press release, Sept. 2, 2026; Hoodline, Sept. 2026; Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2026
A public university hospital abandoning publicly-insured patients to prioritize profit
About 40% of LA County residents are covered by Medi-Cal and therefore rely on the public safety net for their medical care.
UCLA Health is the most profitable medical center in the University of California system. It also treats the smallest share of Medi-Cal patients, spends the least on charity care, and holds the most days of cash on hand.
UCLA’s Medi-Cal share falls 16.5 points below its own county. Every other UC medical center matches or exceeds the county it serves.
Medi-Cal Share of Total Discharges vs Countywide Medi-Cal Average
Source: California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI), rolling four quarters ending 2025 Q3. Hospital figures are the Medi-Cal share of total discharges; the countywide average reflects the Medi-Cal share for the county of each UC medical center.
Sources
Source: California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI), rolling four quarters ending 2025 Q3. Hospital figures are the Medi-Cal share of total discharges; the countywide average reflects the Medi-Cal share for the county of each UC medical center.
UCLA gives the smallest share of charity care in the UC system.
Charity Care at Established Rates as % of Total Operating Revenue, FY 2025
Source: University of California Medical Centers Annual Financial Report, FY 2024–25, Table 4a (charity care at established rates) and Table MDA.6a (total operating revenue). UCLA: $18.4 million of $5.03 billion.
Sources
Source: University of California Medical Centers Annual Financial Report, FY 2024–25, Table 4a (charity care at established rates) and Table MDA.6a (total operating revenue). UCLA: $18.4 million of $5.03 billion.
UCLA averaged an 11.6% operating margin over three years, roughly eight times the 1.5% median for U.S. academic medical centers.
Operating Margin by UC Medical Center, FY 2023–FY 2025
Sources: University of California Medical Centers Annual Financial Report, FY 2024–25, Tables MDA.6a–MDA.6c (operating margin = income from operations ÷ total operating revenue; bars show the three-year average, and UCLA’s FY 2025 margin alone was 15.8%); McKinsey & Company, “Ensuring the financial sustainability of academic medical centers,” April 30, 2024 (1.5% median operating margin in 2022 among 45 leading U.S. academic medical centers).
Sources
Sources: University of California Medical Centers Annual Financial Report, FY 2024–25, Tables MDA.6a–MDA.6c (operating margin = income from operations ÷ total operating revenue; bars show the three-year average, and UCLA’s FY 2025 margin alone was 15.8%); McKinsey & Company, “Ensuring the financial sustainability of academic medical centers,” April 30, 2024 (1.5% median operating margin in 2022 among 45 leading U.S. academic medical centers).
UCLA Health could run for 219 days on its cash reserves alone.
Days Cash on Hand by UC Medical Center, 2025
Source: University of California Medical Centers Annual Financial Report, FY 2024–25, Table MDA.32 (days cash on hand).
Sources
Source: University of California Medical Centers Annual Financial Report, FY 2024–25, Table MDA.32 (days cash on hand).
The cost lands on the people with the least room to absorb it.
Patients
People in the middle of cancer treatment, transplant care, high-risk pregnancies, complex chronic disease management, etc. are being sent back into an overstretched safety net to start over with completely new care teams.
Children
Kids with complex medical needs are losing specialty pediatric care. Inevitably, this will result in emergency visits, more hospitalizations, and longer hospital stays, ultimately burdening families with the costs of such care.
Trainees & future care
A hospital that does not serve at-risk communities cannot train students, residents, and fellows to be ready to care for all patients that our healthcare system must serve.
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Myth: Caring for Medi-Cal patients is prohibitively expensive
UCLA Health claims that Medi-Cal reimbursement has not kept pace with the cost of care. Interestingly, UCLA Health continues to increase its profitability year-over-year, specifically while it has poured substantial resources into acquiring numerous hospitals and clinics throughout LA. UCLA Health medical centers’ net patient revenue rose from $3.5 billion in fiscal year 2023 to $4.4 billion in 2025, about a 25% increase in revenue.
Sources: University of California Medical Centers Annual Financial Report, FY 2024–25 (Tables MDA.6a–6c, MDA.7a, MDA.20; Displays 3–4); Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2026; CalMatters, Aug. 2017
UCLA can afford to care for Medi-Cal patients. Yet providing care to such patients is less important to UCLA than increasing its revenue.
Advancing the neoliberal agenda to define and measure healthcare by profitability
The medical-industrial complex (MIC) is upheld by a web comprised of many actors, including academic institutions, public and private hospital and clinic systems, and insurance companies. Academic centers like UCLA Health advance the MIC by using language like “fostering community partnership” while at the same time deciding which communities actually are able to access their care, often leaving out the communities whose care is deemed “unprofitable” or “useless” in an academic/education context. Insurance companies and FQHC/IPA networks like HCLA, which dictate who receives care where, contribute by controlling the process of assigning worth to a person’s health based on hand-selected variables that are inherently inequitable, such as labor, employment, and fitness.
As we continue to allow big institutions like UCLA Health and HCLA to posture against each other to see who will benefit the most financially from patient care, we see the horrible effects on the communities they deem unfit for care. The lack of urgency to maintain mechanisms for long-term care for at-risk, low-income, racialized patients superimposed on the efforts of both organizations to point fingers, dodge accountability, and continue business as usual for wealthy patients is morally bankrupt.
These organizations cannot and should not be the stewards of healthcare, as they are unable to resist stratifying patients by their purported monetary/social capital and extracting said capital to the highest degree rather than providing the highest possible level of care to all. We as providers, patients, and community members deserve to have the autonomy to govern how we deliver and receive care.
