Center in the News

But Nadereh Pourat, director of the Health Economics and Evaluation Research Program at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said if CalCare is implemented well, it could be even more financially beneficial than the current system. A comprehensive system in which everyone is equally covered brings equality and simplicity, two attributes the current system does not offer.

“If you look at the big picture, if you get a product like CalCare that’s really comprehensive and covers everything, and you don’t have any cost sharing, why wouldn’t you go for a better product?” Pourat said.

A new study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research examines how the state’s Whole Person Care program, a pilot project launched in 2016 to integrate medical care, mental health services and social supports like housing aid for Medi-Cal beneficiaries from these vulnerable populations, responded to the pandemic’s challenges. In many cases, the findings show, Whole Person Care’s 25 county-based pilot programs were able to successfully pivot in order to continue providing health and social services and enroll participants.