Health Care

California’s health system faces a $30 million gutting. Unions and advocates want a wealth tax targeting billionaires to make up the loss.

Newsom has already vowed to tank a proposed ballot initiative that would impose a 5% wealth tax on the state’s billionaires to bolster Medi-Cal. Progressive lawmakers and their allies in labor and health seem hopeful that Newsom could support a different long-shot funding idea.

Starting in 2026, California tortillas will contain folic acid to help prevent birth defects—a change aimed at closing a gap for Latina mothers.

California health care was hit hard in 2025: more than three million may lose Medicaid, Covered California subsidies at risk, and the state froze enrollment for undocumented residents amid budget cuts.

In vitro fertilization costs thousands of dollars and is often too expensive for many people struggling to conceive. A new law aims to help change that.

Senior Californians in rural communities are dying by suicide at troubling rates—struggling with pain, cut off from doctors and mental health care, with guns at hand. Access to care and safety planning would help, experts say.

PACE lets seniors stay out of nursing homes and still receive a variety of health and home services. Too few people know about it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's CARE Court changed the way California treats people with severe mental illness. We spoke with dozens of participants to learn how it's working.

Californians with loved ones in the throes of severe mental illness embraced Gov. Newsom's CARE Court and helped him sign it into law. Two years later, some of them say little has changed.

Gov. Newsom called for accountability on mental health and homelessness when he proposed his CARE Court program. What became law, however, pleased almost no one.