Positioning California for Health Care Reform

California is far behind other states in moving to implement health care reforms, and at least one barrier is a reluctance to approach the health care needs of state workers and Medi-Cal recipients in a unified manner.

In this policy analysis, the Commission makes three recommendations to create a temporary commission to put forth a single plan for a health system, establish a unit within the Department of Health Services to create clinical guidelines that weed out useless and ineffective health care treatments, and perform educational outreach to help consumers make better use of their health care benefits.