Sacramento Imam Mohammad “Yasir” Khan. (Photo: Council on American Islamic Relations)When Sacramento Imam Mohammad “Yasir” Khan leads the opening invocation for the California Assembly on Jan. 11, he will do so as the first appointed Muslim chaplain in state legislative history.
In 2015, California’s push to expand health care coverage continues at a rapid pace. Consider this statistic: 12 million of our residents are enrolled in Medi-Cal – nearly one in three Californians. This greater demand is creating new challenges for California’s hospitals, both inside and outside of their walls.
OPINION: Once again the California Hospital Association is mounting a crusade that the survival of the multibillion-dollar California hospital industry is in grave jeopardy. The threat? Earthquakes? Climate change? Godzilla? Not exactly. The big threat is AB 503, a bill that would let the public know whether non-profit hospital corporations justify their enormously profitable tax-exempt status by providing sufficient charity care and community benefits.
If there’s any label that has lost all meaning it must be “non-profit” hospital.
Long gone are the days when hospitals were small institutions, focused on patient care, and run by local boards accountable to their local communities.
Today, most “non-profit” hospitals are part of mega corporate chains, operated in secret by corporate