The data are plain to see. Every year the average MCAT and GPA are higher for California applicants. If you can't see that it's more difficult for California medical school aspirants than med school wannabes from the rest of the country to get into an MD school, that's your problem not mine.
I suppose you believe that if a relatively high percentage of applicants from one state gets in, those applicants have an easier path than the rest of the country. This is the Gonnif hypothesis. Well, the percentage of applicants who get in is irrelevant because of self exclusion. The decision to apply to medical school is grounded in economics. If a medical school aspirant believes he or she has no shot of being admitted based on the admissions profile of matriculants coming from his/her home state, then the applicant probably won't waste his/her time and will move on and do something else. If an aspirant thinks he or she has a good shot, applications will be filed. You will find attached an EXCEL file of the average GPA and MCAT score for
applicants, by state of residence, to allopathic medical school between 1997 and 2009. (Again this is provided by AAMC and I got it through an academic.) You will see, if you open your eyes, that states with low averages among matriculants have low averages among applicants. States with high averages among matriculants have high averages among applicants. Compare the average MCAT among applicants from California with applicants from the rest of applicant pool. You might also want to take a course in economics.
The medical community would have us believe that the medical school admissions process is hyper rational, empirically validated, meritocratic and conducted on a level playing field. Well, that's just malarkey. (Yes, my little darling is a board certified MD.) The likelihood that someone will get into medical school is highly dependent on the state in which the applicant calls home and the resources available to him/her. If an applicant with stats that meet the national average for matriculants comes from West Virginia, Mississippi, or North Dakota, that kid is in. If that kid is from California, Massachusetts or New Hampshire, that kid is going to osteopathy or nursing school.
Finally, here is a link to a Rand Corporation study from decades ago showing the impact of state of residence on the likelihood that a "good" applicant (based on various statistical characteristics) will be accepted to medical school.
Table 5 shows that a "good"ORM applicant from South Dakota had a 94% chance of gaining admission to medical school. However, a "good" applicant from California would have a 39% chance of gaining admission.
In the spirit of the U.S. Open, "game, set, match"!