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California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who campaigned on single-payer, has called healthcare a human right. In practice, however, the potential presidential candidate emphasizes safety net services, from expanding coverage to immigrants to constructing behavioral health supports, often for those experiencing homelessness.
Enhanced federal subsidies and more state aid for out-of-pocket costs have made health insurance purchased through California’s marketplace more affordable. It's unclear if the incoming Republican Congress will extend the enhanced subsidies beyond 2025.
John Baackes, who steered Medi-Cal’s largest health plan following the Affordable Care Act expansion, and later prepared it for a state overhaul of Medi-Cal, will retire after this year. Baackes believes low payments to doctors and other providers, along with an acute labor shortage, hamper Medi-Cal’s success.
Federal regulators face a growing challenge — how to prevent rogue health insurance agents from switching unknowing consumers’ Obamacare coverage without making the enrollment process so cumbersome that enrollment declines.
The legislature is considering taking the first steps to make Covered California plans available to immigrants without permanent legal status. The state has already extended Medi-Cal coverage to low-income immigrants.
California state lawmakers this year are continuing their progressive tilt on health policy, debating bills banning an ingredient in Froot Loops and offering free condoms for high schoolers.
California’s health insurance exchange will reduce how much some patients pay for care next year, including hospital deductibles, appointment copays, and prescription drugs. Lawmakers pressed Gov. Gavin Newsom to make good on a four-year-old pledge to use proceeds from a tax penalty on uninsured people to help people pay for treatment.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is getting pressure from his political allies to begin spending money on health care that the state raised by fining Californians who go without health insurance. But Newsom says the state can’t afford to.
California has enrolled into Medi-Cal more than 300,000 older immigrant adults lacking legal residency since May, but the state doesn’t know how many more might be eligible. Community workers are now searching for them.
Nearly half a million Californians without legal residency make too much to qualify for Medicaid yet they can’t afford to buy coverage. A state lawmaker is proposing to open up the state’s health insurance exchange as a first step to providing them affordable insurance.
If family coverage on an employer-sponsored plan is too expensive, a worker’s spouse and dependents may be eligible for Affordable Care Act subsidies under a new federal rule.
Many colleges require students to have health insurance coverage, and the college option can be costly. In addition, some schools mandate that students pay a fee to cover health services on campus.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed spending $100 million to make insulin affordable to millions of people with diabetes under a new state generic drug label, CalRx. But state officials haven’t said how much the insulin will cost patients or how the state will deal with distribution and other challenges.
Amid covid-19, the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade, and a war in Europe, the Affordable Care Act has been flying under the radar in 2022. But this will be a pivotal year for the federal health law. Unless Congress acts, millions of Americans could see their costs for coverage rise dramatically as expanded subsidies expire. At the same time, the end of the public health emergency could boost the uninsured rate as states disenroll people from Medicaid. Peter Lee, who recently stepped down as the first executive director of the largest state-run ACA insurance marketplace, Covered California, has thought long and hard about how the ACA came to be, how it’s been implemented, and what should happen to it now. He joins host and KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner for a wide-ranging discussion on the state of the ACA.
Southern California correspondent Bernard J. Wolfson answers questions about the health coverage deals available on California’s Affordable Care Act marketplace during Radio Bilingüe’s news program “LÃnea Abierta.â€
Families of four with incomes of less than about $40,000 a year can pay no premiums and have low deductibles. For some others, health insurance in 2022 will cost more than in 2021 — in some cases, significantly more.
Peter Lee helped create Covered California, which has been lauded as a national example among the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces, and he fiercely opposed Republican efforts to repeal the federal health reform law.
California has more at stake than any other state should the U.S. Supreme Court strike down the Affordable Care Act. Millions of people could lose their health coverage and the state could lose billions in federal money each year.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is defending the law with the backing of more than 20 other states, told California Healthline that he predicts the justices will uphold it.
For Californians who are buying their own insurance, enrollment in 2021 health plans runs through Jan. 31.
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