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.
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.
Testimony from Assembly hearing on California’s current health care system.
On November 10, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case California v. Texas, one possible outcome of which is the Affordable Care Act (ACA) being struck down in its entirety. The Labor Center has produced several publications exploring the potential consequences for California if the ACA is overturned.
The ACA covered millions of people and reduced the racial and ethnic disparities in health coverage in California; to take away these coverage options especially during a global pandemic and recession would exacerbate racial and ethnic inequality in California.
The ACA expanded coverage options available to low-income Californians and unemployed workers; to take away those options during a global pandemic and recession would compound the hardships faced by low-income households.
Overturning the ACA would reduce annual federal funding to California by $28.8 billion in 2022, the year of focus for this analysis. Many Californians’ jobs are also at stake should the ACA be overturned. California would be projected to have 269,000 fewer jobs, $29.3 billion less in state GDP, and $2.2 billion less in state and local tax revenue, compared to if the ACA remains in effect.
October 30, 2020
VIDEO: California Assembly Committee on Health Care Affordability: How to Control Costs in California
August 12, 2020
Economic and Health Benefits of a PPE Stockpile
July 21, 2020
Workers as Health Monitors: An Assessment of LA County’s Workplace Public Health Council Proposal
A University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center analysis shows that setting aside 90 days’ worth of PPE per 1 million health care workers would cost $50 million, although advocates point out that it would save lives and lead to lower treatment costs.
More than 20,000 COVID-19 cases among essential workers in the state may have been avoidable if proper PPE had been available before the pandemic, a UC Berkeley Labor Center study found in August. Moreover, it’s “likely that dozens of deaths” among these workers could also have been avoided.
Newsom faces the pressure from lawmakers to make California the first state in the nation to cover every income-eligible resident regardless of immigration status.
“The ACA covered millions of people and reduced the racial and ethnic disparities in health coverage in California,” researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center and UCLA Center for Health Policy Research wrote in a recent publication. “(T)o take away these coverage options especially during a global pandemic and recession would exacerbate racial and ethnic inequality in California.”
This stipend bears little resemblance to traditional employer-based insurance, which is what drivers would get if they were considered employees instead of gig workers, said Ken Jacobs, chair of the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
Laurel Lucia
Director, Health Care Program
Ken Jacobs
Labor Center Chair
Miranda Dietz
Research and Policy Associate
Tynan Challenor
Research and Policy Assistant
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