SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) The University of California is a public university system in the State of California and receives a sizable amount of public funds to conduct its mission. The University of California’s portion of the California state budget in 2020–2021 was $9 billion, $3.5 billion of which is from the General Fund.
(b) UC Health is the fourth largest health care system in California and it trains more than one-half of the medical students and residents in California.
(c) Existing law recognizes that all reproductive health care, including abortion, is basic health care. Existing law further recognizes that public entities in California may not preference one pregnancy outcome over another.
(d) Existing law recognizes that denying transgender patients gender-affirming care is discrimination based on gender identity.
(e) Existing law recognizes that adults have a range of health care options for the end of life, including continuing measures to sustain life, withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatments, voluntarily forgoing food or drink, palliative treatments that may advance the time of death, hospice care, and medical aid in dying. These are personal decisions individuals make about their own lives and loved ones. Public
entities should not favor one preference over the other.
(f) Existing law recognizes the need to protect patient access to comprehensive health care services free from bias and discrimination, as evidenced through the state Medi-Cal program, which prohibits any participating provider from discriminating against any beneficiary on the basis of race, color, age, sex, religion, ancestry, national origin, or physical or mental disability.
(g) The University of California has entered into contracts with health facility contractors in which University of California-employed health care practitioners and trainees of the University of California have been subjected to policy-based restrictions on care in the health facility that prevent the University of California practitioners and
trainees from providing patients with medical information and services that are medically necessary and appropriate.
(h) Policy-based restrictions on care have serious implications for patients of color, particularly Black and Latinx low-income patients, whose unequal access to care has been largely dictated by the legacy of structural racism and socioeconomic inequities deeply embedded throughout the health care system.
(i) Policy-based restrictions on care undermine the University of California’s values of prioritizing patient-centered care, delivering evidence-based high-quality care, providing access to comprehensive reproductive health care, and ensuring access to nondiscriminatory care.