Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Carmela Coyle

18: Carmela Coyle

Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, weathered the COVID-19 state of emergency and is now facing off against more existential threats to some of the more than 400 hospitals and health systems it represents: a lack of health care workers, hospital closures and bankruptcies, and increasing costs. The CHA plays an influential role in nearly every piece of major health care legislation in the Capitol; this year, it led the opposition to SB 525 – a union-backed bill that would raise wages for California’s hospital workers, and, critics say, would reduce the health care workforce – and successfully lobbied for increases to Medi-Cal reimbursement rates. Coyle came to the CHA in 2017 after heading the Maryland Hospital Association for nine years, and before that she spent 20 years in senior policy positions at the American Hospital Association.

Updated Aug. 15, 2023