HOOVER — U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) served as the keynote speaker for the Alabama Hospital Association’s Healthcare Leadership Summit on Saturday.
While speaking to a large group of the state’s hospital leaders at Renaissance Birmingham Ross Bridge Golf Resort & Spa in Hoover, the 2026 Alabama gubernatorial frontrunner laid out the importance of health care to growing and improving the state’s health care system.
“Alabama’s hospitals are at the center of our communities,” Tuberville outlined. “They’re open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, taking care of our families when we need them most. In Alabama, the 114 hospitals across our state pump more than $25 billion into our economy every single year. They support over 143,000 jobs, and last year alone, they handled nearly 565,000 inpatient stays. That’s real care for real Alabamians, day in and day out. And our hospitals aren’t fancy skyscrapers in big cities. A lot of them are the biggest employer in small towns all across rural Alabama. When that hospital is strong, the whole town is stronger. When it struggles, the whole community feels it. They train the next generation of young nurses, doctors, technicians, and all the therapists who we hope will stay right here in Alabama and take care of us. They’re the first ones on the scene when a crisis or a natural disaster hits.”
He continued, “They run food pantries, free clinics and health fairs. They partner with churches, schools, fire departments – you name it – to make our neighborhoods safer and healthier. And I’m proud of every single one of them. And I know you are too. As you know, right now we have the biggest opportunity in a generation to make these hospitals even stronger, especially the ones serving rural Alabama, where more than 40% of us live.”
Alabama’s senior U.S. Senator went on to pledge to keep doctors from leaving the state. He also emphasized the need to “wash our hands of DEI in medical schools” and return to rewarding merit.
“We must wash our hands of DEI in medical schools,” Tuberville declared. “DEI has plagued our federal government, academic institutions, and other aspects of our society for far too long, all while disregarding merit in the process. We want Alabama students – our brightest young minds from every corner of the state – to have places at Alabama medical schools based on their hard work, talent and qualifications, not on divisive quotas or identity politics. We want them to stay right here and practice in Alabama, building our communities, serving our rural areas, and strengthening our health infrastructure for generations to come. That’s how we homegrow and KEEP good talent: by rewarding merit, not DEI checklists. Let’s reject this poisonous ideology in our education and health care systems once and for all.”
“Thank God President Trump is restoring merit-based hiring practices to our government,” he added.
