Over the past few years, California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, has been catapulted into a new role. It has evolved from a program designed to provide health coverage to a subset of low-income individuals and help counties meet their longstanding obligations to provide indigent care to a program that is the single largest source of health insurance in California and the foundation of the state’s healthcare coverage continuum for people who do not have affordable health insurance through the workplace. Medi-Cal needs a vision, structure and plan that recognize and support this evolution.

In a new report for the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), Manatt Health considers the current state of Medi-Cal and potential pathways for the next chapter of delivery reform, focusing particularly on Medi-Cal managed care. The report provides an overview of the Medi-Cal landscape, shares perspectives from a diverse array of Medi-Cal stakeholders, assesses key challenges and opportunities, and articulates a route for advancing Medi-Cal delivery system and payment reform. In addition, Manatt Health produced a companion chart pack with a landscape assessment of how the Medi-Cal program operates, is financed and performs, as well as how some individuals use the system.