California is the health innovator that can barely afford care

California invented modern wellness. Now, it can no longer afford it. A public health crisis, fueled by massive federal budget cuts, is bearing down on the very state that taught the world how to be well.

As federal political priorities shift towards deregulation and massive funding cuts — like the recent $600 million reduction for California and three other states — the gap between the health-haves and have-nots is becoming a chasm. In the Bay Area, counties are bracing for catastrophic losses; Santa Clara County alone projects a shortfall of up to $1 billion over the next few years, forcing local governments to scramble for regressive sales taxes to fund what progressive federal taxes once covered.

Here lies the great California paradox: the state that gave the world the modern gym, the farm-to-fork movement and the wellness mindset is becoming a place where those benefits are increasingly inaccessible to its own residents. READ MORE