Sweeping federal spending cuts to Northern California’s largest public hospital system could ripple far beyond Silicon Valley — threatening communities statewide that rely on doctors trained in Santa Clara County.
Public hospitals train 50% of new doctors across California, despite comprising only 6% of the state’s total hospitals, according to statewide data. Santa Clara County’s hospital system, the second largest in the state, accounts for a bulk of that new workforce and trains about 110 doctors a year, according to county leaders.
But that might change in coming years, when President Donald Trump’s watershed budget bill takes effect and dries up a projected $1 billion in funding for county health system services. Officials have warned this kind of revenue drop off isn’t something they can budget through…