The forum begins at 10 a.m. March 31 at the State Capitol Building, Room 112. California Program on Access to Care (CPAC) at UC Berkeley School of Public Health is convening the forum, which is co-hosted with the Senate and Assembly Health Committees. The forum will be broadcast live on Cal Channel and will be televised for internal viewing in the Capitol.
"Our state faces huge challenges in preparing for the massive health care changes ahead," said Gil Ojeda, director of the California Program on Access to Care. "We need to figure out how to expand the state-run Medi-Cal program and facilitate the expansion of private sector health plans to accommodate the influx of the newly insured."
The federal legislation seeks to cover more than 30 million Americans by the end of this decade. Health reform is sure to have a huge impact in our state where 8.2 million Californians, or 22 percent of the state's population, now lack health insurance, according to a new study from UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research.
Broad health coverage will start in 2014, when nearly 16 million Americans will become covered by Medicaid, the federal health insurance plan for the poor. That means as many as 2 million Californians will be newly eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid.
"Our state must look at expanding its high-risk insurance pool, expanding Medi-Cal, and establishing insurance exchanges ... that's a tall order for the state to accomplish in a relatively short period of time," said CPAC director Ojeda, "especially in a time when state resources are stretched so thinly due to our budget crisis."
Moderating the forum is Stephen Shortell, dean of UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. There will be two panels at the forum. The first panel includes Ruth Liu, senior director of Health Policy of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and Leif Wellington Haase, the California director of the New America Foundation; they will discuss health delivery system innovations in the public and private sectors. The second panel includes John Grgurina Jr., CEO of the San Francisco Health Plan, and Lucien Wulsin, executive director of the Insure the Uninsured Project; they will discuss health insurance market reforms, including risk pools, rate regulation and insurance exchanges.
Representatives from the Senate and Assembly Health Committees, Gov. Schwarzenegger's office and stakeholder groups will also speak at the forum.
- Event: "Healthcare Reforms in California: Toward Delivery System and Insurance Market Reforms"
- Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010
- Time: 10 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
- Location: State Capitol Building, Room 112, Sacramento
- Sponsors: California Program on Access to Care (CPAC) at UC Berkeley and the Senate and Assembly Health Committees
The California Program on Access to Care is an applied policy research program administered by UC Berkeley School of Public Health in coordination with University of California Office of the President. CPAC's activities provide independent research and analysis to State decision makers, including legislators and government agency leaders. CPAC works to expand health care access for the state's most vulnerable populations, including immigrants, agriculture workers, the working poor, and other low-income groups.