Health care: Hospitals First Revolving Fund.

Existing law establishes the Department of Health Care Access and Information, which administers, among other programs, the Rural Hospital Grant Program, which provides grants to alternative rural hospitals and rural hospitals that are sole community providers to encourage the development and transition to an alternative rural hospital model, and to provide essential access to services not available at the alternative rural hospital level, and the Small and Rural Hospital Relief Program for the purpose of funding seismic safety compliance with respect to small hospitals, rural hospitals, and critical access hospitals in the state. This bill would establish the Hospitals First Revolving Fund, administered by the department, to offer grants and low-cost loans to hospitals in rural and medically underserved communities to prevent the closure of a hospital or facilitate the reopening of a closed hospital.