Jeremy Cantor on Community-Led Reinvestment in California

The following post was originally shared on LinkedIn by our partner, Jeremy Cantor.

There's a lot of uncertainty and bleak, challenging news on the California healthcare landscape these days. One small source of light and inspiration is the initiation of the state's Community Reinvestment (CR) requirement for Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans (MCPs). CR will result in significant resources to support upstream efforts to improve health and health equity in many communities across the state. It should also bolster relationships and partnerships.

By way of background, CR was put into place as part of the state's Population Health Management strategy and detailed in a 2025 All-Plan Letter (revised last week). The headline is that MCPs (and their delegated entities) are required to invest 5-7.5% of their net income back into the communities they serve. Community input and engagement are built-in as is alignment with community planning processes: Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans (CHA/CHIPs) from local public health departments and behavioral health transformation initiatives from county behavioral health agencies. MCPs will hear from DHCS this month regarding calculation of their expected investment and are expected to submit an investment plan by September of this year. 

This presents a unique opportunity to create both a consistent assessment-planning-implementation cycle and a priority-setting process that balances the priorities of healthcare, public health, and community members. Of course, community leaders have seen enough similar processes that didn't fulfill promises to know that statements and intention only goes so far. As one participant in the Berkeley CHA/CHIP process I recently helped lead put it "A lot of requests are for the community to tell us your story and then in return, they feel like they don’t get anything so…there’s a feeling of hopelessness."  

Implementation of CR is where the intention to center community priorities can be realized. That's why Prevention Institute, Golden Policy Partners, and JPC Health Strategies are launching a project, with TCE support–Catalyst for Community-led Reinvestment–to encourage accountability and community empowerment in the process and outcomes. We'll be hosting a webinar in about a month to share more details about the initiative, our project, and how to get involved. In the meantime, feel free to reach out with thoughts or questions.