San Mateo County Weighs Impact of State Budget Cuts
San Mateo County officials expect recent state budget cuts to affect health care programs more than other county efforts, the Oakland Tribune reports.
To win Republican lawmakers' support for a state budget agreement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) last month used his line-item veto to eliminate $700 million from the fiscal year 2007-2008 state spending plan.
Among the changes, Schwarzenegger reduced a fund for Medi-Cal payment increases by $103.6 million, yielding a still unknown effect for Health Plan of San Mateo County, the county's Medi-Cal managed care plan.
Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program.
In addition, San Mateo County will lose $914,000 from Schwarzenegger's elimination of funding for a program to provide mental health and supportive services to homeless people.
Beverly Thames, spokesperson for the county health department, said that mitigating the lost mental health funds will be the county's first priority (Bishop, Oakland Tribune, 9/18).