Medi-Cal

Medi-Cal cuts will strain hospitals already operating at a loss. The fallout: fewer services and higher costs for the privately insured too.

California’s uninsured rate could nearly double by 2030, with the sharpest losses hitting Black, Asian, and Latino residents in Southern California. A new documentary reveals the human toll behind the numbers, including families navigating Medi-Cal amid immigration raids and looming benefit cuts.

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.

Twenty-five Democratic-led states plus the District of Columbia have sued the Trump administration over its new work requirements for people who get their health insurance through Medicaid.

Shasta County is one of several California counties bracing for higher costs tied to federal legislation.

An analysis by KFF Health News found the health care program for low-income Californians lost almost 100,000 immigrants without legal status in the second half of 2025.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Wednesday approving emergency funding for reproductive clinics following the loss of federal funds.

Newsom has already vowed to tank a proposed ballot initiative that would impose a 5% wealth tax on the state’s billionaires to bolster Medi-Cal. Progressive lawmakers and their allies in labor and health seem hopeful that Newsom could support a different long-shot funding idea.

Birth centers are disappearing in California. A newly-signed law expands support for labor and delivery services to address the problem.

Lower-income people will be the hardest hit. Over the next 10 years, 3.4 million Californians could lose coverage.

Many undocumented immigrants have long feared that their Medi-Cal data would be used against them. Newsom calls it “an abuse.”

A proposal in Congress would require some adults to document 80 hours a month of work or school. Experts say the red tape and paperwork is so cumbersome that even people who work will lose their health insurance.