California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP)

We analyze the cost impacts of proposed health insurance benefit mandates and repeals.

The California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP) was created in 2002 by the California State Legislature to provide independent analysis of the medical, cost, and public health impacts of proposed health insurance benefit mandates and repeals.

A team of analytic staff at the University of California, Berkeley works with a task force of faculty from several University of California campuses, as well as actuarial consultants to complete each analysis during a 60-day period, usually before the Legislature begins formal consideration of a mandate bill.

UCLA CHPR staff conduct economic and financial impact analyses of proposed legislation that would require specific health benefits to be offered by all insurers. UCLA CHPR Associate Director and Health Economics and Evaluation Research (HEER) Program Director Nadereh Pourat, PhD, serves as vice chair of cost impact for CHBRP, and Senior Research Scientist Riti Shimkhada, PhD, is a lead analyst for the cost team.

The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) is used to estimate the insurance coverage of the population in California and is the basis for establishing baseline enrollment projections for its CHBRP’s Cost and Coverage ModelIn 2022. CHIS data were used for part of the analysis or background for 18 bills and specifically cited in the estimates provided in the following CHBRP analysis:

Assembly Bill 1930 Medi-Cal: Comprehensive Perinatal Services: would mandate that coverage for specified comprehensive perinatal services, delivered through the Comprehensive Perinatal Services Program (CPSP), for Medi-Cal beneficiaries be extended from 60 days to 12 months following the last day of an individual’s pregnancy.The bill also seeks to allow unlicensed perinatal health workers (PHWs) to be reimbursed for services rendered in a nonmedical setting and change their supervision requirements.