Covered California is set to announce its 2018 plan rates on Tuesday, August 1st. These rates will determine what health plans charge consumers for monthly premiums on the exchange. Covered California delayed announcing the premiums because of federal uncertainty over the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Although Republican efforts to repeal the ACA failed last week, President Trump continues to rattle insurance markets by threatening to eliminate federal payments to insurers for cost-sharing reduction subsidies (CSRs). The subsidies are the subject of a lawsuit House v. Price, filed by House Republicans in 2014 which challenged the President’s authority to pay for the CSRs – even though they are an explicit part of the law. The case is now before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has put the case on hold. Currently the federal government has only committed to funding CSRs through the month of May 2017.

The latest issue of our Health Equity Forum newsletter came out today and it includes several great articles and dozens of resources!

CPEHN’s Executive Director, Sarah de Guia, opens the newsletter affirms CPEHN's commitment to defending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and announces CPEHN's role in convening a California Oral Health Network. 

Our newsletter features an article from the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California (LCHC) that spotlights their work on oral health. We also highlight our partners, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles who are also working hard to ensure equity in oral health. We have also included an article summarizing CPEHN's work in oral health and how our community campaign to restore dental benefits was a success. Finally we have a federal and state legislative updates. 

CPEHN is proud to release our latest report, “Mind, Body, Spirit: Advancing Mental Health and Substance Use Equity.” This report builds upon the California Reducing Disparities Project draft Strategic Plan, which was produced in 2015 to highlight mental health disparities and community-driven policy solutions.

Mental health and well-being is a core component of overall health, but communities of color in California face myriad barriers to optimal mental health and necessary care. Decades of community disinvestment, over-policing, and poverty had produced toxic stress that pervade communities of color and immigrant communities. Coupled with a mental health care system that is often difficult to navigate, communities of color lack access to the right care at the right time.

Yesterday, the University of California at Berkeley released a study showing that 82% of Medi-Cal enrollees believe is very important for health plans to provide coverage for mental health and substance use care, but that only 47% believe their plan does provide this coverage. California has made significant strides in adding mental health benefits to the Medi-Cal program and ensuring the more Californians have coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Now, we must defend these important advances and improve access.

Download our report here.

Assembly Bill 391 (Chiu), successfully passed out of the Assembly Health committee with bipartisan support (11-0). The bill is co-sponsored by CPEHN and the Regional Asthma Management & Prevention and Children Now, and it will allow California to better deliver care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries with asthma by adopting policies to expand access to cost-effective preventative care and provide healthcare workforce opportunities for communities of color.

Asthma is a significant public health problem and driver of health care costs. Over 5 million Californians have been diagnosed with asthma[i] -- about 1 in 7 state residents. Asthma is of particular concern for low-income Californians enrolled in Medi-Cal. Low-income populations, like the nearly two million Medi-Cal beneficiaries who have been diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives,[ii] have higher asthma severity, poorer asthma control, and higher rates of asthma emergency department visits and hospitalizations. [iii] In 2010, Medi-Cal beneficiaries represented 50% of asthma hospitalizations and 42% of asthma emergency department visits, even though they represented only 30% of Californians. [iv]