Medi-Cal Expansion Necessary to Meet Health Reform Goals

This week, state lawmakers are meeting in a special session to hash out the logistical details of fully enacting the Affordable Care Act by January, 2014. The special session allows for laws to take effect within 90 days, rather than next year. A new state-run insurance market is supposed to be up and running by October, so those rules need to be established. And Medi-Cal -- the federally funded health care program for low-income residents -- will need to be dramatically expanded.