Beyond touting a record of Medi-Cal fraud enforcement, elder abuse prosecutions and prescription drug fraud investigations as attorney general, Jerry Brown’s policy papers and interviews so far have been thin on details about his health care policy.

Brown called the landmark health care legislation passed earlier this year by Congress “a real step forward” and said his staff at the attorney general’s office would not challenge its constitutionality.

He has suggested several reforms to Medi-Cal, including legislation that would require care providers to report health care costs explicitly and transparently in order to encourage competition. His budget plan proposes using the combined negotiating leverage of CalPERS and Medi-Cal to hold down public health care rates.

Brown has spoken up several times about the need for prison health care reform, which he said imposes unneeded costs on the state. His budget plan recommends an overhaul of prison health care practices and suggests shifting elderly and terminally ill inmates into less expensive Medi-Cal programs.

His pension plan calls for both extending the vesting period for state workers to qualify for health care and requiring them to contribute more to their health plans.

Whitman, too, has spoken infrequently about health care – at least compared to her voluminous expositions on subjects like the state budget and job creation. Many of her statements have been directed toward California nurses, whom she has tried to woo away from the Brown camp amid fierce opposition from unions.

She has at times taken a hard line against the landmark federal health care legislation that passed Congress last spring – referring to it in April by the “Obamacare” moniker popular with Republicans and saying that she would urge the state’s attorney general to join a lawsuit designed to block its implementation.

In letters and a Web site directed at state nurses, Whitman has repeatedly expressed support for laws that mandate specific nurse-to-patient ratios. She has also called for a $1 billion investment in the University of California and California State University systems, specifying that part of that money would go toward nurse recruitment.

Like Brown, Whitman has also called for reforms to prison health care but has offered few details. She has also promised unspecified reforms she said would reduce the cost of workers compensation' and pension health care costs.