In 2006, Schwarzenegger created the Emergency Medical Services Authority and invested tens of millions of dollars to stockpile supplies and equipment, including three mobile hospitals.

“In light of the pandemic flu risk, it is absolutely a critical investment,” Schwarzenegger said at the time. “I’m not willing to gamble with the people’s safety.”

“Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment,” a weekend article by the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Los Angeles Times said. “Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed.”

However, five years later, Brown, having inherited huge budget deficits from Schwarzenegger that were accumulated during the Great Recession, cut off funding for the program. Most of the equipment was donated to local hospitals and other medical agencies without money to maintain it and much of it was allowed to expire.
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Over the last decade, state public health spending has been flat in dollar terms, but its share of the budget is now half of what it once was.
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.. vital programs such as public health have been neglected while spending on Medi-Cal, pensions and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (prisons) has soared much faster than revenue growth.