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As health costs escalate, affordable care is out of reach for many — particularly California’s poorest residents. We help readers understand the struggle to lower costs and access barriers.

Editor's Picks
STD Investigator Hou Vang (left) works in his office as Jena Adams (right), Communicable Disease Program Manager, checks in on him on June 8, 2022. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local Congenital syphilis rates soar across California as public health funding dwindled prior to the pandemic
Mindy Lym has been living with long COVID since the summer of 2022. After months of bed rest, she's now living in Camas, Washington, where her symptoms are improving but are still a day to day challenge. Photo by Celeste Noche for CalMatters Long COVID in California: ‘A pandemic of loneliness and social isolation and rejection’
Elbert Lee Jones Jr. outside the Close to Home St. Mary's Center transitional housing in West Oakland on Jan. 12, 2023. Photo by Martin do Nascimento, CalMatters The fastest-growing homeless population? Seniors
Outlines of the Madera Community Hospital sign being covered by a tarp at the Emergency Room entrance of the hospital on Jan. 2, 2023. Madera County Sheriff Tyson Pogue announced a state of emergency for the county when the hospital shut its doors due to bankruptcy. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local After Madera’s hospital closure, could others follow?
Illustration by Chanelle Nibbelink for CalMatters On the edge: Can California heal its mental health system?
Meet the Team
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Adam Ashton
Deputy Editor
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Ana B. Ibarra
Health Reporter
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Kristen Hwang
Health Reporter
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Jocelyn Wiener
Health Reporter
Health
California doles out hefty payments for hepatitis C drugs
Private health plans invoiced the state of California $387.5 million to cover high-cost hepatitis C treatments in Medi-Cal between July 2014 and November 2015, when just 3,624 patients received the treatments, according to the California Department of Health Care Services. The state’s supplemental payments started after managed care plans that cover health services for almost […]
By • January 27, 2016
Health
The obscurity of drug spending in Medi-Cal
California will be a flashpoint in the policy debate this year around reining in the cost of high-priced prescription drugs. A measure expected to be before voters this November would restrict the state’s payments for drugs to no more than the lowest prices paid for the same drug by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. […]
By • January 20, 2016
Health
Care for disabled Californians ensnared in Capitol politics
A strange thing is happening in Sacramento: voices on the political left and right are calling for the state to spend more money on services for Californians with developmental disabilities. The message is coming from Republican legislators, who have delivered boxes of petitions to Gov. Jerry Brown’s office, as well as labor unions that have […]
By • January 13, 2016
Health
Catholic Church pushes to the left and the right
The Catholic Church was a player in two of the biggest bills California lawmakers grappled with this year, working to push politicians to the left in one case, and to the right in another. Many religious groups lobby the Legislature on a host of issues. But it was unusual for one to be so visible […]
By • September 17, 2015