By: Paul Hiltz, NCH President & CEO
Earlier this month, the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) was signed into law. This expansive legislation changes how healthcare is funded and delivered, especially through Medicaid. While intended to reduce federal spending and promote personal responsibility, it may also have unintended consequences:
- The law restructures Medicaid, capping the federal funding Florida receives—even as the cost of care continues to rise. Medicaid already reimburses providers below the cost of delivering care. These new reductions make it even harder to sustain care for Medicaid patients without risking our system’s financial health.
- New work requirements may lead many low-income adults to lose coverage, and $35 monthly copays may make Medicaid unaffordable for others. As a result, patients may delay care, making them less healthy in general. Or they may seek care in the wrong settings like Emergency Departments, raising costs and slowing down the delivery of care.
These changes add pressure to the many challenges already facing community-based, non-profit health systems like ours. We’re navigating reduced reimbursements, inflation, workforce shortages, and the growing need to invest in both aging infrastructure and the advanced facilities and technologies our region deserves.
If the last decade has taught us anything, it’s that change is constant. But what remains unchanged is our mission: helping people in our region live longer, happier, and healthier lives. We achieve that mission through our unwavering focus on quality.
Quality is our strategy for enduring the inevitable financial and regulatory shifts – and occasional global pandemics – that impact the healthcare landscape year in and year out.
Quality is the flywheel now propelling medical innovations, attracting the best and brightest physicians who are driving clinical innovation, encouraging community support and engagement and, most important, ensuring the best medical outcomes and experiences for everyone in our community.
It is evidenced by national recognition from Becker’s Review for our Simulation Center that delivered more than 20,000 hours of advanced medical training in 2024 alone; by receipt of The Joint Commission Gold Seal of Approval for Comprehensive Stroke Center Accreditation – the only such award in West Florida; by Healthgrade’s designation of NCH as a Top 1% Health System for overall clinical performance in the country; by our designation as a Top 50 national Cardiology Program from Money Magazine; and by our construction of new state-of-the-art medical facilities like the R.M. Schulze Family Heart & Stroke Critical Care Center and HSS at NCH which brings the world’s number one rated care in Orthopedics to the residents of Naples and surrounding communities.
But beyond the accolades, our commitment to quality is reflected in the countless stories of friends and neighbors who turned to us for primary, emergency and specialty care and are now enjoying better health and quality of life. Quality is why more patients in Southwest Florida – snowbirds and locals alike – are choosing NCH for all their care and why the host of commercial insurance carriers are partnering with us to make sure their members have complete access to our facilities, providers and care teams.
The OBBB may make delivering exceptional healthcare to every patient even more complex. But our commitment to quality is what ensures that NCH remains your trusted, independent Advanced Community Health System™ today and for generations to come.
