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.
The state’s economy started 2026 as the nation’s No. 2 performer – its highest ranking among U.S. states for business growth in just over a dozen years. That bit of Golden State economic sparkle was discovered by my trusty spreadsheet in its review of state-by-state gross domestic product figures for the first quarter from the U.S. Bureau ...
As the Trump administration’s January deadline looms for states to enforce new Medicaid work requirements, some state lawmakers are turning the tables by pushing to publicly name the largest companies that have employees enrolled in the government program covering low-income and disabled people. California lawmakers seek to revive an expired law that would require the state to ...
In 2021, the California Assembly introduced a new bill, AB 1400, which – if passed – would have eliminated health care in California, as we know it today. Instead, all health care in California would be provided by one new “Single Payer” system called “CalCare” – with no other options for Californians. The move would have eliminated all existing ...
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara approved workers’ compensation advisory pure premium rates that average 10.4% than last year. The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California submitted a pure premium rate filing in May to the commissioner proposing September 1, 2026 advisory pure premium rates that average 10.4% higher than the average of the approved September 1, ...
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana is taking aim at California’s Medicaid program for providing housing assistance, food, and other social services to high-need, low-income patients who tend to rack up big healthcare costs and, he argued, strain taxpayer funds. The Republican blasted California during back-to-back political attacks in May, saying the heavily Democratic state is ...
For decades, Californians have generally said that immigrants, who make up more than a quarter of the state’s population and a third of its labor force, are beneficial to the state and its economy. But budget instability and concerns about rising costs are spilling into a debate over the controversial and expensive policy of allowing low-income immigrants without legal status to ...
California Republicans are turning to the Trump administration to do what they couldn’t in the Legislature: defeat a new tax on health insurers recently approved by Democrats. More than a dozen Assembly Republicans sent a letter Monday to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Centers for Medicare & ...
When Taletha Washburn and the staff at Plumas Charter School first heard that California wanted to help schools treat more kids struggling with mental health, it felt like a well-timed remedy for a rural community where families struggle to find care. Getting the program funding up and running, however, has proved difficult. Employees spent two ...
Gov. Gavin Newsom reached an agreement Friday with legislative leaders on a $351.7-billion state budget in his final year as governor, a spending plan that uses a tax windfall to avoid major cuts and lessen California’s chronic deficit in the years ahead. The deal provides nearly $2 billion in state revenue next year through tax ...
Legislators this week approved a health tax bill meant to continue critical federal funding for the state’s Medicaid program, also known as Medi-Cal. Their approval comes despite warnings from health industry leaders that the tax, as designed, will raise premiums for privately insured Californians. New federal rules are forcing the state to restructure its managed ...