UC Health leaders proposed a $36.7 million budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year to a UC Board of Regents committee meeting Tuesday.
UC Health operated with a budget of $35.4 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year, a 6.2% decrease from 2024-25, according to a May 2025 agenda item. The 2026-27 budget, if approved, would result in a 3.5% budget increase and would go toward health research, systemwide partnerships and modernized data analytics, according to Tuesday’s agenda item.
The health services committee also reviewed a one-year progress check on UC Health’s 2025-28 strategic plan. UC Health identified higher costs, workforce shortages and federal disinvestment in government healthcare programs as structural issues affecting the division.
David Rubin, the UC Health executive vice president, said these issues will worsen over time. A lack of federal support has caused other health facilities to close, leading more people to rely on UC Health’s emergency services, he added.
“The consequences now of federal disinvestment are washing up on our shores,” Rubin said at the meeting.
UC Health identified five key objectives for its strategic plan: protecting partnerships with the state and federal government, conducting medical outreach in under-resourced areas, improving outpatient care, supporting student and employee health, and increasing the use of artificial intelligence and data analysis. The plan extends these objectives into action items, including improving medical education in the Inland Empire and Central Valley, whose UC schools don’t have academic health centers.
As part of those objectives, UC Health proposed opening a health campus at UC Riverside and supporting medical school program developments at UC San Francisco and UC Merced. UCR has a medical school currently, but UC Health said in the plan that a larger health campus would allow it to have new clinical training sites and more training opportunities for its 394 medical students.
UC Health made progress on expanding education this year, according to the agenda item, including by using the $28.4 million it received from Proposition 35 and 56 funding to strengthen medical training in high-need regions.
Rubin said advancing medical education at UC’s Merced and Riverside campuses is among UC Health’s top priorities.
“We’re expanding our clinical and training presence in underserved regions because we have to,” Rubin said. “We have to support a school presence in Riverside and emerging presence in Merced.”
The health division is also hoping to attract more employees to Blue and Gold health benefit plans and raise money for student health insurance plans sponsored by the UC.
Calvin Yang, a student observer, said he likes that the plan shows a commitment to making health services more affordable but added he thinks UC Health should work more closely with its county partners to leverage other funding sources, like the Behavioral Health Services Act, which funds mental health and substance abuse treatments.
“By aligning UC’s clinical expertise, research capacity and student health infrastructure with BHSA investments, we have the opportunity to not only expand access to care but thoughtfully strengthen a more coordinated, prevention-oriented behavioral health system,” said Yang, a fourth-year molecular cell biology and public health student at UC Berkeley.
The division also made strides in optimizing AI tools that process health data and invested in infrastructure from Epic Systems, an electronic health record system, per the agenda item. UC Health intends to use data collection and analysis to improve or maintain the system’s current 15-day median wait time for new admissions, as well as for patient experience surveys.
Other goals include collaborating with the UC Office of the President and other campus agencies to defend federal health programs, as well as clinical and public health funding, and advocating for legislation supporting Medi-Cal patients. The health division also seeks to work with campuses to coordinate responses to funding cuts
As scheduled in the plan, UC Health hired Erica Murray in April to serve as associate vice president of strategic partnerships, a position intended to bolster relations between health centers and state legislators.
“Together, these efforts position UC Health to deliver systemwide value and support the long-term sustainability of the University’s health enterprise,” the agenda item said.
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