The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

Jan 13, 2025 - The reason for the reduction is the recent voter approval of Proposition  35 (2024), which requires the state to spend less MCO tax money on offsetting General Fund spending and more money on provider rate increases.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4951

The 2025-26 Budget: Medi-Cal Pharmacy Spending

Apr 3, 2025 - In 2023 ‑24, we estimate these rebates comprised 3  percent of gross spending, up from as low as 1  percent in some years. This increase was expected following the switch to the Medi ‑Cal Rx system in 2022.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5026

The 2025-26 Budget: Understanding Recent Increases in the Medi-Cal Senior Caseload

Mar 6, 2025 - The 2019 ‑20 budget package eliminated this share of cost for seniors and persons with disabilities up to 138  percent of FPL, consistent with the eligibility rules for children and adults through age 64.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5010

The 2025-26 Budget: CalAIM Enhanced Care Management and Community Supports Implementation Update

Mar 6, 2025 - As discussed above, DHCS had estimated that between 3  percent and 5  percent of Medi ‑Cal MCP members were eligible for the ECM benefit. While the ECM benefit is intentionally targeted at a small subset of the overall Medi ‑Cal population, the take up appears to be between about one ‑third and one ‑quarter of those eligible for services.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5003

Building California’s Behavioral Health Infrastructure: Progress Update and Opportunities for the Proposition 1 Bond

Feb 5, 2025 - From 2008 ‑10 to 2018 ‑20, rates of suicide in California among youth aged 15 through 24 increased by more than 20  percent. These troubling trends have accelerated since the COVID ‑19 pandemic and have made improving California ’s behavioral health system a priority for the state ’s policymakers.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4954

An Update on the Public Health Laboratory System After the Pandemic

Jun 12, 2025 - Between 2007-08, when CDPH became a standalone department (it was formerly a division within the then Department of Health Services), and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019-20, the overall CDPH budget was relatively flat and was about $3.4  billion (total funds) at its highest.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5056

The 2025-26 Budget: MCO Tax and Proposition 35

Feb 26, 2025 - This is because the augmentations were scheduled to ramp up in 2025 and 2026, requiring a larger share of MCO tax funds. Under Proposition  35, the cost of this backfill is even higher, as even more MCO tax funding must be allocated toward augmentations.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4992

The 2025-26 Budget: Health Care Access and Information

Feb 20, 2025 - As Figure  5 shows, however, as measured by the consumer price index, prescription drug cost inflation has slowed over the past 50 years. While drug inflation has tended to exceed overall inflation, this trend reversed in the last few years.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4979