Covered California still faces major challenges in enrolling African-Americans and Latinos as the state’s health insurance exchange launches its third open enrollment period Sunday. “We know we’ve come up short in who’s enrolled today,” Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said at a recent media briefing on the exchange’s marketing and outreach plans. “Of those ...

The Obama administration on Thursday said that it would wage a national advertising campaign to counter a perception among people with low incomes that health insurance under the Affordable Care Act was not affordable. The television advertisements say that most people who sign up for insurance at HealthCare.gov can “qualify for financial help to make ...

California and the federal government agreed in concept Saturday on a $6.2-billion deal to reform the Medicaid program and to help pay for care of the low-income population. The largest share of the funds – nearly $3.3 billion – is aimed at helping public hospitals improve the safety and quality of patient care. The plan, ...

We know obesity increases your risk of having high blood pressure, getting diabetes and being diagnosed with certain cancers. Now it turns out it can also increase costs for your state government. A study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs found that medical care associated with severe obesity cost state-run health programs $8 billion in 2013. California’s program for the ...

The skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs — already a hot issue on the U.S. presidential campaign trail — may be headed to California’s statewide ballot next fall. Advocates of a proposed measure that would require state programs to pay no more for prescription drugs than prices negotiated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said ...

The head of California’s health insurance exchange toured Los Angeles by bus Sunday, seeking to publicize the Affordable Care Act’s potential benefits among Southern Californians, many of them Latino, who officials say have failed to take advantage of the law. On the first day of this year’s open-enrollment period for federally subsidized health plans, the ...