KFF Health News January 17, 2020
Medi-Cal had a big decade.
The number of Californians enrolled in the state’s health insurance program for low-income residents swelled by 5.5 million from 2010 to 2019. It now covers 1 in 3 Californians and 40% of children.
The program’s annual budget — a combination of state and federal money — tops $100 billion, more than the entire state budget of Florida.
“Medi-Cal is the largest Medicaid program among all of the states,” said Dr. Andrew Bindman, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco who helped implement the Affordable Care Act as part of the Obama administration.
It’s most likely going to get bigger. On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom released his 2020-21 state budget blueprint, which...