Louise McCarthy is the President & CEO of the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County (CCALAC), where she represents the interest of LA area community health centers and those they serve. 

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CCALAC is the largest regional coalition of nonprofit community health centers in California. Health centers in LA provide primary medical, dental, behavioral health, and other critical wrap-around services to over 1.89 million LA residents per year. The vast majority of health center patients are low income, and are either publicly insured or uninsured. Nearly 76,000 health center patients are experiencing homelessness.

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Since joining the health center movement in 2005, Louise has guided health centers through a number of milestone moments in health care policy, including passage and implementation of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and the Affordable Care Act; fighting against the proposed repeal & replace of the Affordable Care Act; and coordinating the safety net’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among her accomplishments, Louise led negotiations on behalf of LA’s community health centers on the creation and implementation of Healthy Way LA and My Health LA, LA County’s free public health care programs for low-income, uninsured residents of the County. From 2007 to present these programs provided quality health care services to several hundreds of thousands of Angelenos. 

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Louise has been recognized for her leadership at the local, state, and national levels, including recognition by the National Association of Community Health Centers with the Betsey K. Cooke Grassroots MVP and the Grassroots Advocacy Hall of Fame awards. 

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Louise is a board member of the California Primary Care Association and Urban Voices Project, and an active member of her local Friends of the Library chapter. She holds a master’s degree in public policy and is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She earned a bachelor of arts from the College of Saint Benedict and St. John’s University in Minnesota.