Medi-Cal, the State of California’s version of Medicaid, has been spending on extraneous programs such as housing while running up a deficit so extreme that the state has had to borrow over $6 billion to save it.
As Breitbart News reported last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration had to seek $6 billion in loans to keep the program from collapsing, partly due to the cost of covering illegal aliens, which he did last year.
Now, CalMatters.org reveals that the federal government is cracking down on Medi-Cal and other Medicaid providers that have been using money to support “rent assistance” and “medically tailored meals”:
In 2022, California made sweeping changes to its Medi-Cal program that reimagined what health care could look like for some of the state’s poorest and sickest residents by covering services from housing to healthy food. But the future of that program, known as CalAIM, could be at risk under the Trump administration.
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The moves align with a narrower vision of Medicaid espoused by newly confirmed Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Dr. Mehmet Oz, who said during his swearing-in ceremony that Medicaid spending was crowding out spending on education and other services in states with the federal government “paying most of the bill.”
“This one really bothers me. There are states who are using Medicaid — Medicaid dollars for people who are vulnerable — for services that are not medical,” Oz said.
President Joe Biden allowed California and other states to “experiment” with Medicaid funding — and California spent itself into near-insolvency. The Trump administration is cracking down, insisting that Medicaid spending be restricted to medical expenses — not items like housing for indigent patients.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
