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 formed by 30 LA County community health centers to manage specialty care for more than 680,000 low-income residents that rely on the public safety net for their medical needs. 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 6 months, 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; Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2026
A public university hospital that will no longer take public insurance
About 40% of LA County residents are covered by Medi-Cal and therefore rely on the public safety net for their medical care.
In 2025, just 15% of UCLA Health’s net patient revenue came from Medi-Cal. That is significantly less than any other UC health system, where the share is about 22%. UCLA Health simply does not see nearly as many Medi-Cal patients as other UC health systems as it currently stands. This is despite one of the stated goals of UCLA Health being “to meet increasing community health care needs.”
Medi-Cal patients continue to be seen at a high volume in the emergency department. UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Emergency Department is a Level 1 trauma center, meaning that it is uniquely rated to handle complex trauma/emergency cases and therefore receives many such cases by default. Medi-Cal patients made up 34% of its emergency department visits in the most recent fiscal year. Since ending the HCLA contract, UCLA has not proposed alternatives to providing sustained follow-up care to ED Medi-Cal patients.
Source: Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2026 (citing UC health system annual reports and the California Health Care Foundation)
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.
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 due in large part to payment denials and delays.
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. In total, UCLA Health medical centers’ net patient revenue rose from $3.5 billion in fiscal year 2023 to $4.4 billion in 2025.
$5.0B
total operating revenue at UCLA’s medical centers in FY 2024–25, representing a $824 million (20%) increase in one year.
$793M
in excess income in FY 2024–25, i.e. the surplus remaining after all associated costs of care
15%
Medi-Cal share of UCLA’s patient revenue, which has been unchanged since 2023. Every other UC medical center: 22%
Between fiscal years 2023 and 2025, UCLA’s medical centers grew net patient revenue by 25%, from $3.52 billion to $4.40 billion, and their income before transfers to the university rose from $334 million to $889 million. The University of California credits UCLA’s 2025 growth partly to a full year of revenue from West Valley Medical Center, the hospital it bought in 2024. Over those same three years, Medi-Cal’s share of UCLA’s patient revenue never rose above 16%.
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
So is this about who UCLA can afford to care for, or who UCLA deems worth caring for?
Advancement of the neoliberalist agenda and the Medical-Industrial Complex
Many actors are complicit in maintaining the MIC, including academic institutions, public and private hospital 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.” Insurance companies such as HCLA 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 and prioritization of maintaining mechanisms for long-term care for at-risk, low-income, racialized patients superimposed on the efforts of both organizations to point fingers, dodge accountability, continue business as usual, and spread lies about profitability to the public is morally reprehensible. The fight today is just further proof that 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 simply providing care to all.
Patients Over Profit UCLA 