Progress Report on Hospital Cost Control in California

Abstract

The March 31 issue of the Journal¹ carried a Special Report by Melia et al. on California's attempt to control spiraling health-care costs by introducing competition into the health-care marketplace through negotiated Medical (Medicaid) contracts, a transfer of services for medically indigent adults from the state to the county level, and ultimately, negotiations of private-insurance contracts. (Medically indigent adults are poor or nearly poor persons between the ages of 21 and 64 years who were under the jurisdiction of Medical before the passage of state law AB 799, but who became the responsibility of their counties of residence as of . . .