Misinformation about low-income patients clouds reason for Madera hospital’s closure | Opinion
Last year’s closure of the Madera Community Hospital has sparked a troubling wave of misinformation. A notable and concerning example is the recent statement by the Madera County public health director.
In recent remarks, she claims that California’s Medi-Cal expansion and its beneficiaries — predominantly people of color in Madera County, which include the largest indigenous population from Mexico in the U.S. and low-income people — are to blame. This assertion is not only factually incorrect but also dangerously misleading.
Medi-Cal’s expansion, like the one that Gov. Gavin Newsom has pioneered, is designed to support the health of California’s most vulnerable populations by ensuring access to health care equitably. For years, many Latino organizations and community leaders advocated for this seismic change in policy, culminating with the accomplished efforts of our Assemblymember Dr. Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno) and state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles); this progress should be celebrated and promoted, not undermined.
Blaming this policy success or its beneficiaries for the hospital’s closure is shortsighted and ignores the real issues. A 2021 report by the California Health Care Foundation highlights that hospitals serving higher proportions of Medi-Cal patients are financially viable when managed competently, suggesting that the financial woes leading to closures stem from administrative, not patient-related failures.
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In addition, public health research from Dr. Maria-Elena Young at UC Merced shows that policies that expand health insurance, educational opportunities, work-place protections and other resources for immigrants, regardless of documentation status, are essential components to achieving health equity.
Many of the new Medi-Cal expansion beneficiaries were deemed “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although their lives were endangered to feed and care for all Californians, they went without health insurance to address their own needs. These public health and community heroes were uninsured not because they didn’t want insurance, but because employers did not offer it and because of policies that excluded them.
Attributing the failure of health-care facilities like Madera Community Hospital to the very communities they serve carries a deeply anti-immigrant and anti-Latino undertone. It perpetuates a stigma against people of color, immigrants, and those in economic hardship while ignoring their contributions to our state’s economic power.
Furthermore, it reinforces barriers to health care rather than dismantling them and erodes the public’s trust. We must not add fodder to the ugly national rhetoric rising against immigrants and minorities just to earn political points or avoid other difficult accountability conversations.
In discussing monumental public health failures like the Madera hospital closing, it is critical to address the root causes rather than casting blame on Medi-Cal expansion and its beneficiaries. The focus in the reopening of the hospital and beyond must be on rectifying management practices, strengthening our health system, and supporting policies that enhance health-care access for all Californians.
Gilda Zarate-Gonzalez of Fresno is a health economist and public health researcher. She is the former Madera County deputy public health director. Contributors to this op-ed are Sarait Martinez, Leoncio Vasquez , Steven Debuskey , and Erika Ireland.
