Opinion Piece Says Despite Balanced Budget, State Must Address Rising Medi-Cal Spending

David Crane -- president of Govern for California and lecturer at Stanford University -- in an opinion piece writes that although "California's recent announcement that it had balanced its budget for the first time since the 2007-08 fiscal year received broad coverage," not much has been said about increasing health care costs in the state. Crane notes that Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, saw the largest spending growth in recent years, accounting for "most of the [state] Department of Health care Services' outlays, which grew [by] 65% over the six-year period." Crane concludes, "To protect its public services and residents, California's leaders will sooner rather than later have to face down the elephant in the budget, Medi-Cal."

• "David Crane: The Health Care Spoiler in California's Rosy Budget" (Crane, Bloomberg, 11/22).