News and Events
Message From CEO Doug McCoy on Federal Medicaid Program Cuts

July 3, 2025

Recently there was a letter drafted by four members of the Senate expressing their concerns for the proposed spending cuts to the Federal Medicaid program as part of President Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Act. While the spending reductions differ between the House and Senate proposals, both include over 700 billion in reduced Medicaid spending over the next 10 years.

With 15.3 million Californians on the MediCal program, California’s funding reduction would be much larger than the impact to other states. This is a significant concern not only for individuals covered under the program, but also for hospitals who serve a large MediCal population in their area.

The letter submitted by the Senators included a list of hospitals across the country that would be threatened by these reductions either due to the high number of Medicaid patients served or because they were already struggling financially.

EPHC was included on the list along with two other critical access hospitals in our northern area. We were not consulted nor was the California Hospital Association in advance of the letter being generated and sent to Congress which has created concern in our community.

While EPHC opposes the cuts due to their impact on care delivery, we have all worked very hard over several years to ensure that EPHC remains in a strong financial position and continues to provide high quality service without interruption.

We have intentionally made strategic decisions a year in advance of these potential cuts to have EPHC in the best position to not only avoid reductions in our services, but to actually add services such as our rehab expansion, Senior Solutions Program, and day care. We have accomplished this by accessing grant funding, limiting costs, and decreasing long term debt which has also allowed us to provide staff increases again this year.

This is a challenging time for the health care industry and frankly some hospitals may be at serious operational risk if the budget proposals are passed. However, thanks to the talent and commitment of every EPHC team member, this WILL NOT be the case for our hospital. We will continue to be the quality provider and employer of choice long into the future!

Should any of you have questions, concerns, or want to discuss the Federal situation in more detail I am happy to make myself available to you.

Thank you for all you do every day!

Sincerely, 
Doug McCoy, CEO