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SANTA CRUZ – After 16 months of negotiations, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will consider approving proposed agreements with Kaiser Permanente establishing health care service requirements for low-income and disadvantage communities across the county.
The effort is part of a broader renegotiation of existing “access to medical care” agreements with similar stipulations and involving local providers Dignity Health Dominican Hospital, Sutter Health Santa Cruz Maternity and Surgery Center and Watsonville Community Hospital.
The newly proposed agreement, which will receive a close reading at the board’s meeting Tuesday morning, was developed by the county’s Health Services Agency alongside Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals Inc. The agreement asks Kaiser to commit 2% of its annual commercial dues from Santa Cruz County residents to provide “health-focused charitable and community benefits to the Santa Cruz County community,” according to the staff report. This equates to roughly $4.5 million based on the company’s 2022 numbers, as noted in the report.
The commitment could take the form of care for those who are uninsured or are beneficiaries of Medi-Cal or Medicare, contributions to charity care across the county, grants to nonprofit organizations supporting identified local health needs in the region and recruitment of physicians to the county to care for those who are of low-income or uninsured.
The agreement also allows Kaiser, who contributed millions of dollars in the effort to save Watsonville Community Hospital after bankruptcy, to count some of its in-kind services and grant donations towards this new annual commitment.
According to the agenda report, conversations between the Health Services Agency and Kaiser have been ongoing since 2021 and after several deferrals, the board will now have an opportunity to weigh in.
Wastewater project
The board will also receive an update regarding a project aimed at establishing a community wastewater collection system in Boulder Creek that will improve regional water quality and aid residents recovering from the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire.
The scope of the effort includes an expansion of the Boulder Creek Sanitation District or County Service Area 7 which currently provides a county-operated sewage system to parcels near the Boulder Creek Golf Course. The project would expand the number of connections within the service area from 264 to about 1,500, helping to reduce costs for homeowners that had previously been responsible for clearing and maintaining the systems themselves.
Prior to the recent redistricting that moved her district’s boundaries outside of the San Lorenzo Valley, Rep. Anna Eshoo helped earmark $2 million in federal funds for the effort last year. The grant is expected to arrive by spring. Preliminary estimates for the whole project range from $60-90 million and will require multiple funding sources and strategies, according to the staff report.
If you go
What: Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors meeting.
When: 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Where: 701 Ocean St. Room 525 or Zoom: us06web.zoom.us/j/89949240497.
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