We’ve made big strides this week on covering more Californians regardless of immigration status, but there’s more to do!
Legislature makes push for 50+
On Wednesday, state Senate budget subcommittee 3 on Health & Human Services and the state Assembly budget subcommittee 1 on Health & Human Services took votes on their respective legislative budget proposals. Together, the state Senate and Assembly budgets are aligned on a significant investments to remove exclusions in Medi-Cal for all income eligible Californians age 50 and over, regardless of immigration status. This is a bigger step than proposed by Governor Newsom in his May Revision where he proposed removing the exclusion for age 60 and over.
According to a recent LAO report, covering undocumented residents age 50 and over would provide comprehensive, full-scope Medi-Cal to approximately 245,000 more Californians at a cost of $190 million. Covering the nearly 1 million Californians currently excluded in Medi-Cal would cost $2.1 billion.
The proposals adopted by the Legislature today would provide comprehensive health care coverage to nearly a quarter of a million Californians, significantly lowering the rate of uninsured, and helping our state closer than ever to our goal of universal health care coverage.
We commend the Legislature for taking this key step. However, with the historic state surplus, along with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has disproportionately impacted low-income and immigrant communities, we must keep fighting for as many Californians as possible to be able access to the basic human right of health care regardless of where they were born.
Illinois is beating us!
We just learned that Illinois is poised to adopt funding in their state budget to cover all undocumented residents age 55 and older. This is after they became the first state last year to remove the Medicaid exclusion for all Illinoisans over the age of 65 regardless of immigration status.
California prides itself on being cutting edge and visionary, well here’s our chance! Removing the exclusion in Medi-Cal for ALL income-eligible undocumented Californians would put our state on track for a nationwide first, while lowering our uninsured rate dramatically.
Take Action
Today is the final day to call into the Governor’s office to make the appeal for more undocumented Californians to get the health care coverage they need. As essential workers and people of color, our immigrant communities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Our state has the money and Californians support end this unfair exclusion. We’ve made hundreds of calls already this week, but it will take many more to ensure that the Governor hears our demand for #Health4All. Click the image NOW to make the call. 