California Watch
News stories in this section spotlight activities in California, including actions by the state Assembly and state Senate; proposed legislation; regulators like the Department of Managed Health Care and Department of Insurance; and the state ACA exchange, Covered California.
Stepping into the land of the Trump resistance, Seema Verma flatly rejected California’s pursuit of single-payer health care as unworkable and dismissed the Affordable Care Act as too flawed to ever succeed.
Premiums in California’s health insurance exchange will rise by an average of 8.7% next year, marking a return to more modest increases despite ongoing threats to the Affordable Care Act.
More than one-third of California's $200 billion budget goes toward health care. Private health insurance spending in the state, meanwhile, exceeds more than $100 billion a year.
The Trump administration has been pushing for the return of short-term health plans and association health plans, two types of coverage that are exempt from Affordable Care Act requirements and could offer an affordable alternative to consumers who feel priced out of the Obamacare marketplace. But some California advocates say these plans offer shoddy coverage and pose a threat to the stability of the healthcare system.
A handful of the world’s biggest drugmakers are canceling or reducing planned price increases in the U.S., following a new California drug pricing transparency law and continued political pressure over pharmaceutical costs.
Despite receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money, Medicaid insurers are lax in ferreting out fraud and neglect to tell states about unscrupulous medical providers, according to a federal report released Thursday.
California is boosting reimbursement payments for doctors and dentists who treat the state’s poorest residents. It’s part of an incentive to expand access under Medi-Cal, which offers free or low-cost health coverage to more than 13 million people — a third of the state's population.
Health insurers and Covered California officials are facing another curveball from the Trump administration on the Affordable Care Act that could rattle the insurance market.
Chairman Brady Announces Full Committee Markup
Insurers, doctors and nurses are spending millions on lobbying and donations to lawmakers' campaigns in the current legislative session, battling over costly large-scale changes as they await Gov. Jerry Brown's successor.