Revised Health Plan Offers Only A Few Rays Of Light Amid Gloomy Picture For State
The Republicans left the Medicaid cuts in place, which will deeply affect the one-in-three Californians who get care through the program.
The Mercury News:
Latest Senate GOP Health-Care Plan Gets Mixed Reviews In California
As a growing array of competing health care proposals emerged from the U.S. Senate on Thursday, there was plenty of bad news for millions of Californians. But there were also a few rays of hope that may be good for their pocketbooks — including the prospect for more affordable 2018 health insurance premiums compared with the rest of the country. The big picture, however, still isn’t pretty. The latest version of the Republican leadership’s health care plan continues to cut $772 billion in funding over the next decade for Medicaid, the health care program for the poor that was expanded under the Affordable Care Act to include adults without dependent children — about 3.8 million people in California. All told, Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, is expected to number about 14 million enrollees in the next year, or more than one in three Californians. (Seipel, 7/13)
Modesto Bee:
Revised Senate Bill Would Allow ‘Noncompliant’ Health Plans And Could Threaten Future Of Covered California
As with the repeal-and-replace bill approved in the House of Representatives in May, Republicans want to eliminate the individual mandate that requires most people to have health insurance. If there are enough votes to approve the bill in the Senate, where the GOP has a slim majority, it could jeopardize the ability of the Covered California exchange to offer affordable insurance to 1.5 million low- to middle-income consumers in the Golden State, health advocates said. (Carlson, 7/13)