The Brief

This month, California more than doubled what doulas can earn supporting low-income families through pregnancy, birth, and the year after.

Doulas provide expecting and new parents with educational, emotional, and physical support before, during, and after a baby is born, and also through miscarriages, stillbirths and abortions.

The state started covering doulas through Medi-Cal in January 2023, but few families have used the benefit in the year since. The benefit could bring support to more than 100,000 families a year— 40% of births here are funded through California’s Medicaid program.

Advocates have pushed the state to increase compensation since the benefit’s inception.

“If the reimbursement rate is not adequate, there will not be an adequate work force and the program will not be successful,” was one takeaway from a 2022 panel discussion hosted by the National Health Law Program. A dozen other states cover doulas through Medicaid and those that paid below market rate often failed to serve the vast majority of people who qualified for care.

“My hope is that with this new reimbursement rate, you can now have a situation where doulas… are not just serving Medicaid enrollees as their side, pro bono-ish gig,” said National Health Law Program Senior Attorney Amy Chen. “But this is [work] that they're doing more broadly.”

What doulas do

Doulas’ health education, emotional support, and advocacy is associated with healthier births and lower health care costs.

Christina Wherry completed her first birthworker training in 2017. She also guides people in yoga and meditation.

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Courtesy Christina Wherry

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“You are deserving of having someone there to support you, someone there to answer the questions,” said Christina Wherry, who uses the term birthworker instead of doula, which is derived from the Greek word for female helper or slave.

When Wherry started working with clients in Los Angeles about six years ago, she had to set her own rates.

“Putting a number on caregiving when it's from the heart is definitely difficult,” Wherry said.

With the recent exception of Medi-Cal, most health insurance does not cover doulas, so families pay anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars out-of-pocket.

“I burnt out very quickly,” Wherry said. “I wasn't charging enough. I was doing the work and I wasn't able to take care of myself.”

New California doula rates are the nation’s highest

As of Jan. 1, doulas will earn at least $3,263.21 for attending a birth and providing a family a full set of prenatal and postpartum visits. The previous maximum was $1,152.

California also increased its reimbursements for providing other types of maternity care as part of last year’s budget. The state’s Department of Health Care Services is also proposing additional rate increases in 2025, wrote an agency spokesperson in a statement to LAist.

Most Medi-Cal enrollees get their health insurance through a managed care plan. In Los Angeles, the major plans include L.A. Care Health Plan, Kaiser Permanente, and Health Net.

Doulas who contract with those insurers can be paid no less than the minimums set by the Department of Health Care Services.

Chen, with the National Health Law Program, has researched Medicaid doula programs throughout the country.

“Higher reimbursement rates does seem to be a trend nationally,” Chen said. She noted that California’s doula payments are now the biggest among the states that offer the program.

Birthworkers and advocates continue to collaborate with state leaders to improve the Medi-Cal benefit; the next meeting is Jan. 31.

Doulas look for other improvements

Wherry said the new rates are “decent,” but that she wants to see more opportunities for doulas to rest and recover.

There is an emotional labor in being present for people’s most vulnerable moments and birthworkers also confront the disparities in California’s health care system. Maternal deaths increased during the pandemic and Black Californians die from pregnancy complications at a rate nearly four times higher than the general population.

Still, Wherry said she plans to enroll as a Medi-Cal provider to work with clients who might not otherwise be able to afford to hire a doula.

“It strikes a chord in providing this service for everyone,” Wherry said. “Making it accessible to everyone who's open to it.”

I'm a Medi-Cal member and I want a doula

Los Angeles city officials are asking LA28 to hand over a list of its contracts, saying the Olympics organizing committee could be in violation of its agreement with the city.

LA28’s annual financial report released last week included a broad review of the organization’s deals with contractors hired to help put on the event, but no names or detailed breakdowns of spending.

The Games Agreement between the city and LA28 requires the committee to submit the name, type, amount, term and purpose of each contract it has entered into worth more than $1 million.

No such list was provided in LA28’s report.

“It's inadequate, what we've been provided, and that's not acceptable,” City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said at a committee meeting on the 2028 Olympics Wednesday afternoon.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso said she has requested a full list from LA28 and is waiting to hear back.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, a spokesperson for LA28, said in an emailed statement to LAist that LA28 had received the request.

“We are working through those requests now and remain committed to meeting our obligations," she said.

Tso told the council committee she had seen a more detailed list of LA28’s contracts, but only when it was “flashed on the screen very quickly” at a meeting with her, Olympics organizers, the city administrative officer and the mayor’s office.

“So we don't have a list,” Tso said. “We don't have the names of the folks. We don't have the dollar amounts.”

Tso told the council that Olympics organizers were wary about making contracts public, due to concerns that public disclosure could harm negotiations over competitive event sponsor deals.

City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said that did not satisfy LA28’s obligations to the city.

“They can just be like, ‘Flash it, we're done, and we did our requirement,’” Soto-Martinez said.

The federal financial aid process opened this past week for students applying to college for next year. But for many California students, a source of state financial help remains untapped.

In 2022, the state launched the California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program, also known as CalKIDS, and began creating investment accounts for more than 6 million children in the state to use for higher education.

Babies born on or after July 1, 2022, can get up to $175 in their accounts, while low-income public school students can claim up to $1500.

In Los Angeles County, about 1.1 million public school students are eligible for the accounts, but fewer than 20% of kids have claimed them, said Cassandra DiBenedetto, executive director of California’s ScholarShare Investment Board. The claim rate is even less for babies — about 11%.

“The money itself, it has a long trajectory. So you have these newborns, and there's not a sense of urgency among some parents; they know the account's there, it’s been created. Parents are busy,” DiBenedetto said.

There is no deadline to claim the money, which is already growing in the investment accounts. (You do have to use the money by age 26). But DiBenedetto says kids are more likely to see themselves as college-bound if they have it — and will be able to watch the account grow over time.

“ You talk to second-and third graders who are like, ‘I'm gonna go to UC Santa Barbara,’ ‘I'm gonna go to Cal Berkeley,’” she said.

The state is working with the Los Angeles Unified School District and other school districts to get students signed up.

The city’s top financial adviser is recommending that the Los Angeles City Council deny a police department request to procure 300 additional vehicles for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics.

The report, submitted to the council Monday by City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, found that the L.A. Police Department would have enough vehicles to temporarily expand its fleet during the Games without the additional cars.

LAPD officials had previously requested around $31 million, arguing the additional officers deployed for the Games will need additional vehicles for their police work.

But Szabo disagreed in his report, finding instead that the department would soon have a large enough fleet.

“Given the current available vehicles and new vehicle procurements which have already been funded, it is not recommended to authorize the procurement of any additional police vehicles for the 2028 Games deployment,” Szabo wrote.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment on the city administrative officer’s report. Previously, the department has emphasized that its request seeks only to temporarily expand its fleet, with plans to retire old vehicles after the Games.

The police department has offered different estimates of how many additional vehicles it will need to patrol the Olympics. Two months after the LAPD asked for an additional 300 vehicles, the department released another report estimating an even higher need: 576 police vehicles.

Either way, Szabo’s report found that more than 1,100 police vehicles not yet in use by the department were funded in the past three budget cycles. He said those should be sufficient for the Olympics.

When you sit down at Birria Pa La Cruda in El Sereno, you might be expecting one thing. What you'll leave talking about is something else entirely, and it's just as good.

Take the mushroom quesataco. It starts with a tortilla brushed with avocado oil and griddled until lightly crisp, then layered with a thin skirt of cheese and a smooth smear of refried red kidney beans. On top goes a heap of shimeji mushrooms braised in a house-made salsa verde, mild, nutty and savory with a bright finish.

It's a slight departure for chef Carlos Jaquez, who spent seven years building a reputation for the birria de res at his popular pop-up. Now, at his new brick-and-mortar just blocks from where he got his start, he's serving his much-loved birria alongside several vegetable-focused dishes — including this one.

You get the sense that Jaquez has been refining each one for years through his pop-up, his work as a private chef and his high-end dining background at Otium and Bestia.

Homegrown talent

Jaquez grew up in El Sereno and launched Birria Pa La Cruda (which means “for the hangover” in Spanish) as a Sunday pop-up in 2019. Over the years, he's drawn on everything from his family's cooking to his Indigenous roots, to the bounty of local produce, building a repertoire that showcases the full range of his influences. His new place, on Alhambra Road near Cal State L.A., is his chance to prove it.

Carlos Jaquez, chef and owner of Birria Pa La Cruda, draws on the El Sereno community where he grew up and a wide range of culinary influences.

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Eric Valle

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Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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"I don't wanna just be the birria guy," Jaquez said. "If people know me for just the birria, then I'm sure that one day when I cook something else they'll be like, 'Wow, he can cook other stuff too.'"

The menu

The mushroom quesataco may be exquisite, but Jaquez's birria de res hardly takes a back seat. For example: the mulita. Two corn tortillas are dipped in spiced 12-hour braising liquid, and the beef he uses is cooked in a pot lined with charred blue agave leaves that Jaquez harvests from the El Sereno hills. The meat is piled on thick, then topped with cheese, resulting in a juicy, well-seasoned bite where all the flavors and textures meld together. It's a mouthful, but the mulita shows backbone, never falling apart bite after bite.

The sweet potato tamal, topped with date-almond mole and sesame seeds, served with red amaranth leaves and pickled vegetables.

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Eric Valle

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Courstesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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Where the birria is a constant, the tamal is expected to change with the seasons. Right now, it's sweet potato and organic yellow corn masa steamed in a banana leaf, then topped with a rich mole made from California-grown dates and almonds. It's entirely vegan, though Jaquez doesn't advertise it that way. It's served alongside pickled carrots and a small salad of amaranth leaves grown just outside the space and dressed in a confit garlic vinaigrette.

Amaranth was a staple for Indigenous peoples in Mexico long before the Spanish arrived. Jaquez, who attended Anahuacalmecac, an Indigenous-focused charter school in El Sereno where students learn Nahuatl from third grade through high school, wanted it on the plate.

"We were eating amaranth and tamales and maybe even combining them thousands and thousands of years ago," he said. "Serving that on a menu today is a reflection of the resilience of our roots."

California love

Jaquez believes the caliber of his cooking comes from using local ingredients, whether it’s tortillas and masa milled in Boyle Heights by Kernel of Truth or heirloom tomatoes from Valdivia Farms in Carlsbad.

Chef Carlos Jaquez's birria de res is braised for 8 to 12 hours before it's served.

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Eric Valle

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Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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"Its uniqueness comes from the locality and the quality of the ingredients that we're afforded because we're in L.A. and California," he said.

So, is it a taqueria or a restaurant?

"I don't know," Jaquez said. "It's Birria Pa La Cruda."