Single-payer detracts from Medi-Cal fight

Editorial

Sen. Ricardo Lara’s single-payer legislation was a non-starter in California from day one, even before it was given an eye-popping $400 billion price tag.

He knows that, and so does anyone paying attention to Sacramento and Washington politics. Gov. Jerry Brown would almost certainly veto it if it passes the Legislature, and the GOP Congress has zero interest in the cooperation required to make it work even if the governor were to sign it into law.

It’s merely an exercise in politics, which is all well and good except that it detracts from a far more important California health care issue: Can the state fight off President Trump’s inhumane effort to slash the nation’s Medicaid budget by more than $880 billion through 2026?

The entire California congressional delegation should join the fight. Here’s why: The federal government provides about 65 percent of the funding for California’s $90 billion Medi-Cal program, which pays for health coverage to 13.5 million low-income Californians, or roughly one-third of the state’s population.

If Trump’s budget is approved by Congress, it could represent a $45 billion cut to the federal government’s contribution to the state’s Medi-Cal program. That would be a disaster. More than 6 million Californians would lose their coverage, including half of all kids and two-thirds of all nursing home residents. California cannot possibly come up with enough money to make up the difference.

Hospitals by law are required to serve everyone who comes through their doors. The only way hospitals can cover the costs of treating those without insurance is by increasing county budgets, charitable donations or charging their paying customers higher rates. It’s the most expensive way imaginable of treating the poor, and it results in overcrowded hospital ERs.

The Trump administration knows this, but it’s proceeding anyway, all in the name of coming up with enough savings to give the wealthy a tax break.

To call this callous approach unconscionable doesn’t even begin to describe the extent of the impact on low-income Californians.

Congress has said the president’s budget is dead on arrival, but with Republicans controlling both the House and Senate, it’s likely that some sort of reduction to the state’s Medi-Cal budget is in the works.

California must do everything possible to minimize that cut.

It’s especially distressing to know that 14 GOP members of the state’s congressional delegation, primarily from the Central Valley, already lent their support to the House’s health care bill, signaling their interest in slashing California’s health care program. The Central Valley’s high poverty rate means more than half of its residents receive health care through the state’s Medi-Cal program.

President Obama’s Affordable Care Act has its shortcomings, but dismantling the program at the expense of the poor without any alternative for meeting their needs is hardly in the best interests of California, or the nation.