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.
As they scrambled to finalize next year’s state budget, California lawmakers this week abruptly dropped a plan to offer full Medicaid benefits to young adults living in the country illegally.
Emergency room visits by people on Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, rose 75% over five years from 800,000 in the first quarter of 2012 to 1.4 million in the last quarter of 2016, according to California's Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.
I am a lifelong Democrat who has worked for more than a decade to improve the policies and build the coalitions necessary for the success of the Affordable Care Act. Even so, I believe the ACA didn’t go far enough to guarantee universal and affordable health coverage.
If the federal government does not clarify by mid-August whether it will continue an important health insurance subsidy for consumers next year, California’s state-run exchange will instruct its insurers to sell plans with significantly higher premiums to cover the loss of the money.
California lawmakers introduced legislation Monday that would allow $465 million in higher payments for doctors and dentists who provide publicly funded care.
Medi-Cal patients are swamping California emergency rooms in greater numbers than they did before the Affordable Care Act took effect, despite predictions that the health law would ease the burden on ERs.
President Donald Trump and GOP leaders insisted Tuesday the Senate will vote soon on legislation to repeal and replace "Obamacare." But even as senators headed toward the make-or-break vote before the Fourth of July, deep uncertainty remained about whether the emerging legislation would command enough support to pass.
Trump Country it may be, but rural counties and small towns also make up Medicaid Country — those parts of the nation whose low-income children and families are most dependent on the federal-state health insurance program, according to a report released Wednesday.
In his high-stakes strategy to overhaul the federal health law, President Donald Trump is threatening to upend the individual health insurance market with several key policies. But if the market actually breaks, could anyone put it back together again?
A proposal to adopt a single-payer healthcare system for California took an initial step forward Thursday when the state Senate approved a bare-bones bill that lacks a method for paying the $400-billion cost of the plan.