California: Eligibility & Enrollment

Californians have fought to progressively expand Medi-Cal and Covered California coverage to a wider circle of individuals. Learn more about our Medi-Cal and marketplace eligibility, enrollment, and retention work and how California has built a template for universal health care coverage.


After years of advocacy efforts, California’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, now covers all eligible Californians regardless of immigration status. This is a historic achievement. California advocates are now working to ensure that immigrants that contribute to California’s economy are not unjustly excluded from California’s exchange, Covered California. 

NHeLP’s California team works closely with the state Medicaid agency to ensure that Medi-Cal beneficiaries can access the coverage and care they are entitled to by improving enrollment pathways, simplifying enrollment policies and practices, and streamlining renewal processes. California’s team also works closely with Covered California to ensure that the exchange’s eligibility and enrollment processes and systems are consumer-friendly and facilitate increased enrollment and retention. Our team has worked with Covered California, and state advocates and policymakers to improve the affordability of Covered California plans over the years.

In coordination with our Health Consumer Alliance partners, we also elevate barriers to Medi-Cal and Covered California enrollment and retention that California health care consumers face to DHCS and Covered California to troubleshoot individual cases and influence systemic change.

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