The 2024-25 Budget: The MCO Tax Package at May Revision

May 22, 2024 - Federal Government Signaled Intent to Change Rules for Approving Tax in the Future. As we noted in our February analysis , the federal government has signaled that it intends to change rules around approving the MCO tax.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4905

The 2025-26 Budget: MCO Tax and Proposition 35

Feb 26, 2025 - In a 2023 letter to the state, federal administrators signaled intent to require future MCO taxes to be more proportionate between Medi-Cal and commercial enrollment. This would shift some of the cost of the tax away from the federal government and onto the commercial market and California consumers.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4992

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

Mar 6, 2025 - In the paragraphs that follow, we provide our analysis that results in ou r estimate of at least 165,000 seniors being added due to eligibility expansions since 2020. (As a consequence of this estimate, it follows naturally that we estimate up to 60,000  seniors being added due to the effects of continuous coverage, the unwinding, and unwinding flexibilities, for a total increase of 225,000 seniors due to policy changes.)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5010

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

Feb 5, 2025 - Strategies to do so have included expanding the behavioral health workforce; adding benefits and increasing rates in Medi ‑Cal; and increasing capacity through managed care plans, schools, and in other  settings.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4954

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

Jan 13, 2025 - The Governor has signaled interest in changing the state ’s reserve policy by: (1)  increasing the cap on BSA required deposits from 10  percent of General Fund taxes to 20  percent of General Fund taxes, and (2)  excluding the state ’s reserve deposits from the state appropriations limit.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4951

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

Mar 6, 2025 - The difficulty MCPs have in adding ECM and Community Supports providers may be keeping utilization rates lower than expected. Systemic Constraints Limit Utilization. Lower ‑than ‑expected utilization of certain benefits may be driven more by systemic constraints across different regions of the state rather than a low demand for those benefits.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5003

Mental Health Services Act: Revenue Volatility and the Governor’s Proposal to Reduce Allowable County Reserves

Jul 13, 2023 - One way to measure the variability in a data series is average deviation (AD). AD summarizes —for a given time period —how many percentage points the data in a series deviate from the average growth rate.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4780

The 2021-22 Budget: Assessment of CalHEERS Dashboard

Mar 25, 2021 - The report also could describe how the fixes and functionalities are designed to address known Medi ‑Cal eligibility functionality issues in CalHEERS, and whether any new issues have been added to the dashboard because of the CalHEERS releases.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4408

Mental Health Services Act: Impact of Governor's Proposal on Funding for Children and Youth

Aug 10, 2023 - As discussed above, adding a funding requirement to the FSP category may increase funding for an effective approach to providing children and youth mental health services with a limited impact on current service levels.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4786

Mental Health Services Act: Proposed Bond to Fund Behavioral Health Facilities and Veterans Housing

Aug 17, 2023 - Grant recipients would be required to operate the facilities and units added by the bond for at least 30 years. The proposal is silent on the types of entities that would be eligible to receive grants.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4790