No Significant Health Care Cuts in Revised Budget Proposal

CAL/AAEM News Service calaaem_news at yahoo.com
Mon May 30 22:14:29 PDT 2005


No Significant Health Care Cuts in Revised Budget Proposal

Source: CMA Alert (http://www.calphys.org/html/news.asp) 
Date: May 16, 2005


The Schwarzenegger administration has released its revised 2005-2006 budget proposal. The
spending proposal does not cut Medi-Cal physician reimbursement or contain any direct
cuts to Medi-Cal eligibility or benefits. 

Despite CMA opposition, the budget proposal released on Friday by the governor continues
to propose expanding the Medi-Cal managed care program and requiring beneficiaries at or
above the federal poverty level to pay monthly premiums. 

Medi-Cal Managed Care: Despite CMA's strong and continued opposition, the governor stuck
with his plan to expand the Medi-Cal managed care program. The plan would expand Medi-Cal
managed care into 13 new counties, affecting more than 250,000 enrollees. The proposal
would also require an estimated 550,000 new elderly and disabled beneficiaries to enroll
in the managed care program. 

CMA is concerned that the governor's plan would disrupt long-standing physician-patient
relationships, further restrict patient access to specialists, and place unsustainable
financial burdens on physicians who provide care to children, the disabled, and the
elderly poor. 

Monthly Premiums: Despite strong opposition from CMA and others, the Administration
refused to back away from its plan to require 550,000 beneficiaries to pay monthly
premiums beginning in FY 2006. Premiums would be $10 for adults and $4 for children, with
a family cap of $27. Premiums would not be imposed on beneficiaries with family incomes
below the federal poverty level ($19,590/year for a family of four) or elderly and
disabled beneficiaries with monthly incomes less than the Supplemental Security
Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP) program levels ($812/month for a single
individual, $1,437 for a couple). 

CMA is concerned that the new premium program could reduce enrollment, forcing people to
delay care and not get checkups, while increasing use of emergency rooms by the
uninsured. The administration has estimated that 110,000 beneficiaries would lose
coverage for failure to pay premiums. About 6.6 million Californians are eligible for
Medi-Cal. 

One-Time Public Health Funding: Due to an increase in tobacco tax (Proposition 99) funds,
the revised budget proposal augments funding for public health programs including tobacco
control and smoking prevention ($4 million) and asthma management ($4 million).

For more information, please visit: http://www.calphys.org/html/bb881.asp 


Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


More information about the CALAAEM mailing list