About Laurel
Laurel Lucia is director of the Health Care Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, where she has worked since 2009. Her research focuses on health coverage and cost trends in California, and policies to improve access to and affordability of health care for California workers and their families. Recent publications have examined the impact of rising health care costs for workers in California, policies to improve access to health insurance for California immigrants, shifts in health coverage during COVID-19, and the health coverage and economic impacts in California had the Affordable Care Act been repealed.
She provides technical assistance to policymakers and stakeholders, and has served on consulting teams to Covered California, the California Department of Health Care Services, and the Healthy California for All Commission. In 2021, she was appointed by Governor Newsom to serve on the California Long Term Care Insurance Task Force.
Previously, Laurel worked on issues affecting long term care workers during her time as a researcher/policy analyst for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). She has served as an elected officer for three unions. Laurel received a Master of Public Policy degree from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University.
Medi-Cal Enrollment Among Children and Teens by District and County 2024
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
Medi-Cal Enrollment and Spending by District and County 2024
This page provides estimates of the number of individuals and percentage of population enrolled in Medi-Cal by county, congressional district, assembly district, and senate district, as of June 2024.
Analysis of the Potential Impacts of Statewide or Regional Collective Bargaining for In-Home Supportive Services Providers
The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential impacts of consolidating collective bargaining for California’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) providers from the county level to the state or regional level.
All 2.37 million Californians in the individual market will face higher premiums if Congress does not act by 2025
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) included additional federal subsidies to make health insurance more affordable in the individual market, but these expire at the end of 2025. If Congress does not extend the expanded subsidies and levels revert to those in the original Affordable Care Act, all 2.37 million Californians in the individual market—including those not receiving subsidies—would face higher health insurance premiums and be forced to choose between more expensive coverage, less generous coverage, or forgoing coverage all together and going uninsured.
How Trump Administration Cuts Could Hurt Medi-Cal
During Trump’s first term, congressional Republicans proposed slashing Medicaid funding, though the measure did not clear the U.S. Senate. Had it passed, “California would have lost tens of billions of federal dollars,” Lucia said. Should the Trump administration go after the program on a similar scale in 2025, California wouldn’t be able to fill the resulting revenue hole with state funds.
California Health Care Employers Now Required to Raise Minimum Pay
About 350,000 health care employees, most of them people of color and women, are projected to see an annual average increase of $6,400 in the first year of the policy, according to an analysis by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. In earlier estimates, the labor center calculated up to 426,000 people would be impacted, but that figure included workers at skilled nursing facilities who are currently not covered by the law, according to Laurel Lucia, who directs the center’s health care program.
New minimum wage takes effect for California health care workers
“We estimated that nearly half of low wage health care workers are enrolled in a public safety net program or their family members are enrolled which just underscores how low some of these wages have been,” Laurel Lucia said.
Monterey County’s high hospital costs spurs state officials to come visit and learn more.
“There has been a lot of economic research [about whether] hospitals try to set their commercial prices based on shortfalls from public payers. That research has failed to find evidence of that,” Laurel Lucia says.
Financially Strapped Health Care Workers Wait for Promised Wage Increase
“Increases in the state minimum wage have never been paused,” and the delay is “very unusual,” said Ken Jacobs.
California delayed a minimum wage bump for health workers. Some are getting raises anyway
Labor unions usually push for wage hikes on behalf of their members. In California, only about 18% of workers are covered by a union contract. The health care minimum wage, Lucia said, helps level the field for health workers who do not participate or benefit from labor negotiations.
Vice President Kamala Harris “endorsed free taxpayer-funded government health care for all illegal aliens.”
“Government payments are the main source for helping to defray providers’ costs for care to the uninsured, and those government payments are ultimately funded by taxpayers,” said Laurel Lucia, health care program director at University of California, Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education Center, which provides research and policy information.
Health Care Minimum Wage Hike Delay Leaves Some Workers Behind
About 426,000 people statewide — or about 36% of the health care workforce — will benefit from the minimum wage hike, said Laurel Lucia, who directs the health care program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
California promised a higher minimum wage for health care workers. Will Newsom delay it?
The UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates the cost to the state to be much lower. Total health spending in California would increase by about $2.7 billion because of the law, but the state would be responsible only for a fraction of that, according to the Labor Center’s analysis.
As health care gets more expensive, California looks to limit cost increases
“There’s a lot of waste in our health care system right now and there are opportunities to reduce administrative spending or increase the use of preventive care.” Laurel Lucia said.