The Obamacare Opportunity: Implementing the Affordable Care Act to Improve Health, Reduce Hardship, and Grow the Economy for All Californians

This report describes how California can take advantage of ACA implementation to increase access both to health coverage and to vital safety net and work support programs.In Section I, we describe California's public benefit take up problem. We identify the take up rates of the key safety net and work support programs, barriers to greater participation, and the benefits of increasing participation in such programs.In Section II, we describe how ACA implementation can increase take up rates for health insurance and public benefit programs. States can expand integration infrastructure and operations across a broad range of programs and the federal government will pay most of the costs.In Section III, we set forth various policy options for integrating California's Marketplace with public benefit programs. We describe California's existing integration efforts and present ACA and non-ACA best practices from other states regarding take up strategies.In Section IV, we make recommendations focused on a single goal -- increasing the take up rate of safety net and work support programs to improve health, reduce hardship, and grow the economy for all Californians