Government

California taxpayers dodged a bullet yesterday with the passage of a high-stakes bill to help fund Medi-Cal.

Legislative Democrats and nearly a dozen Republicans approved a plan to trade existing taxes for a new tax on insurers to raise more than $1 billion in needed health care funding and preserve federal Medi-Cal matching funds.

Aliso Canyon will be front and center at an Assembly Utilities and Commerce hearing today. Sen. Fran Pavley's bill, SB 380, would require state officials to immediately institute a moratorium on injections of natural gas into any wells located within and serving the Aliso Canyon storage facility.

The consolidation of the health insurance market continues as DMHC reviews Anthem's proposed acquisition of Cigna. Read those details and more, below.

Governor Jerry Brown's use of the new “Ballot Initiative Transparency Act” has made the citizen initiative process look more like legislative sausage-making.