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.
This blog post focuses on one policy idea currently being considered by state policymakers to address rising health care costs – creating an Office of Health Care Affordability.
The American Rescue Plan substantially increases premium subsidies for coverage purchased through health insurance exchanges like Covered California. We project that these subsidies will help over 1.6 million Californians, including 151,000 individual market enrollees who will qualify for subsidies for the first time and 135,000 uninsured people who will become insured.
Even after the American Rescue Plan (ARP) substantially increases premium subsidies for health insurance coverage purchased through Covered California, large inequities remain in who has access to affordable coverage. Nearly 3.2 million Californians will remain uninsured in 2022, or about 9.5% of the population age 0-64, according to our projections. The highest uninsured rates will be among undocumented Californians (65%) and those eligible only for insurance through Covered California (28%).
Under the Affordable Care Act, eligibility for income-based Medicaid and subsidized health insurance through the Marketplaces is calculated using a household’s Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI). The Affordable Care Act definition of MAGI under the Internal Revenue Code and federal Medicaid regulations is shown below.
Testimony from Assembly hearing on California’s current health care system.
April 13, 2021
American Rescue Plan Improvements to Covered California Affordability: Who Gains?
April 13, 2021
Undocumented Californians Projected to Remain the Largest Group of Uninsured in the State in 2022
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
In April 2021 CHCF reprinted a blog post by researchers at two grantee organizations, UC Berkeley Labor Center and UCLA’s CHPR: “Undocumented Projected to Remain California’s Largest Group of Uninsured in 2022.”
If you don’t have another job lined up that will provide health insurance, you may be eligible for Medicaid or a subsidized plan on the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace. Medicaid typically involves no or low monthly premiums, Lucia said. And marketplace plans are the cheapest they’ve ever been for many people, thanks to relief legislation passed in the pandemic.
Nearly 1.3 million undocumented Californians will remain uninsured in 2022, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. This group makes up the largest chunk of the state’s remaining uninsured.
Nearly 1.5 million unauthorized immigrants lacked health insurance last year, the largest group of uninsured in the state, according to a report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
Still, about 3.2 million people in the state are projected to not have health insurance next year, according to UC Berkeley Labor Center. Nearly half of those people are living in the country illegally, making them ineligible for full Medicaid benefits and other health insurance assistance programs.
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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