The Labor Center’s health care research aims to inform federal, state, and local policymaking to improve access to health coverage and make health care more affordable for workers and their families. Our research especially examines policy impacts for California low-income and immigrant working families and communities of color. Many of our publications include projections from the California Simulation of Insurance Markets (CalSIM) model, jointly developed with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
Our factsheet for calculating Modified Adjusted Gross Income under the Affordable Care Act is available here.
Who is and isn’t insured, coverage affordability, job-based health coverage, the ACA, Covered CA, and Medi-Cal.
Affordability of coverage and care, underlying cost trends, and solutions.
Access to health coverage for immigrant families, undocumented Californians, and those with DACA.
California Simulation of Insurance Markets model projections, reports, and methodology.
UC Berkeley Labor Center researchers Miranda Dietz, Laurel Lucia, Alexis Manzanilla, and Nari Rhee have analyzed the potential impacts of Medicaid cuts on California and the importance of the Medi-Cal program to our state. View their recent publications.
This page provides data on California health care employment by county and congressional district, including by sector and as a percentage of total employment, using estimates from IMPLAN input-output economic modeling software.
Republicans are considering major cuts to Medicaid to offset tax cuts. Depending on the specific mechanisms and timing for cutting Medicaid, California could expect to see between $10 billion and $20 billion fewer federal dollars per year coming to Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. These federal cuts would lead to significant job loss in health care and other sectors.
The onerous documentation needed with Medi-Cal work requirements would increase administrative costs and reduce enrollment and access to care, including for people who are already working or otherwise should be exempt.
This page provides the number and percentage of children and teens enrolled in Medi-Cal by county, congressional district, assembly district, and senate district, as of July 2024. These estimates reflect the district boundaries after the 2024 election
February 3, 2025
Medi-Cal Enrollment and Spending by District and County 2024
March 11, 2025
Medi-Cal Enrollment Among Children and Teens by District and County 2024
February 20, 2024
California health care minimum wage: New estimates for impacts on workers, patients, and the state budget
January 23, 2024
Measuring Consumer Affordability is Integral to Achieving the Goals of the California Office of Health Care Affordability
March 22, 2023
California’s Uninsured in 2024: Medi-Cal expands to all low-income adults, but half a million undocumented Californians lack affordable coverage options
April 3, 2024
Expanding Covered California for All by Ending Immigration Status-Based Exclusions
September 18, 2023
Why are health care prices so high for workers in Monterey County?
June 6, 2023
Extending Covered California subsidies to DACA recipients would fill coverage gap for 40,000 Californians
January 23, 2023
Many California family child care providers will now be better able to afford health care
More than half a million undocumented Californians still earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal yet don’t have employer-based coverage, rendering them effectively uninsured, according to research by the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center.
Federal law prohibits charging the poorest Medicaid enrollees a premium, and Newsom’s $100 monthly payment would be considered unaffordable for current beneficiaries, said Laurel Lucia, director of the health care program at the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center.
In a UC Berkeley Labor Center 2024 report on Medi-Cal Enrollment and Spending by District and County shows enrollment at 44% in the 42nd Congressional District and 46% in the 44th in Long Beach. In the Inland Empire, about 42% of Riverside County residents and 45% of San Bernardino County residents were enrolled in Medi-Cal.
“If federal Medicaid spending is cut,” Lucia said, “it would affect health care providers and health care jobs.” Less funding means less service, fewer providers getting paid, and/or those providers’ rates for service being slashed.
“When a healthcare job is lost, that healthcare worker has less money to spend in their community, at the stores they normally shop at,” said Laurel Lucia. “That in turn could lead to job losses in those other non-healthcare industries.”
Laurel Lucia
Director, Health Care Program
Ken Jacobs
Senior Policy Advisor
Miranda Dietz
Senior Policy Researcher
Alexis Manzanilla
Policy Researcher
