A Public Option Could Work in California and L.A. Care is the Perfect Model: UC Berkeley Researchers

L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest publicly operated plan, has long touted itself as the only functioning public option in the country. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley are suggesting that L.A. Care’s county-based model could be expanded across the state. The researchers found that L.A. Care provided convincing evidence on the effect of increasing competition in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace, which meant lower premiums, not only for L.A. Care members, but also for those of competitors in the market.

L.A. Care is the only public plan that joined California’s ACA exchange, Covered California. While L.A. Care has always offered some of the lowest premiums, in 2018, it became the lowest-cost health plan on the exchange. That resulted in a 4.8% reduction in the annual growth of premiums for all plans in Los Angeles County from 2019 to2022. It led to a savings of $345 million across all plans in the Los Angeles market. 

Health plan and medical group leaders told the researchers that under a statewide public option, they could provide high-quality care while operating with premiums of 5 to 10 percent lower than they are currently. Imagine the savings if all 16 public plans in the state joined the Covered California exchange. L.A. Care has championed the idea for years and now it has third-party validation stating it’s a good idea that should be implemented for the benefit of all Californians.