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

Mar 6, 2025 - Based on our review of the legislative history, the elimination of the asset test was meant to remove a barrier to enrollment, encourage continuity of coverage, and make eligibility determinations between MAGI and non ‑MAGI populations more equitable, among other goals.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5010

The 2026-27 Budget: Department of Developmental Services

Mar 13, 2026 - The department stated that its budget projections for 2026 ‑27 do not incorporate any potential added costs due to the changes in H.R 1. Will the department be able to determine whether its costs increase in the future due to H.R. 1?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5157

The 2026-27 Budget: Medi-Cal Analysis

Mar 2, 2026 - One possible reason for our higher estimate is that our model reflects not only disenrollment among current enrollees, but also reduced enrollment flows over time and a persistent risk of disenrollment among eligible individuals due to added administrative burden.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5146

Climate Change Impacts Across California - Crosscutting Issues

Apr 5, 2022 - This pattern has been particularly notable in the last few years, which have seen some of the worst wildfires in the state ’s recorded history. For example, the 2018 wildfire season included the Camp Fire in Butte County, which became the single most damaging wildfire in state history with nearly 19,000  structures destroyed and 85 fatalities, including the near ‑total destruction of the town of Paradise.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4575

Considering Medi-Cal in the Midst of a Changing Fiscal and Policy Landscape

Oct 24, 2025 - …But Potentially With Added Complexity. Adding more flexibilities also could come with the potential downside of more complexity for beneficiaries and counties. For example, exempting high unemployment counties from work requirements could create more volatility.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5083

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 2021-22 Budget: Analysis of the Medi-Cal Budget

Feb 16, 2021 - The COVID ‑19 ‑related public health emergency is unprecedented in the history of Medi ‑Cal, and so its impact on Medi ‑Cal caseload is difficult to predict. As a result, any projections of near ‑term caseload growth and associated costs are highly uncertain.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4373

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 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

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