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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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State Cutbacks Prove Worrisome for Health Providers

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considers a plan to eliminate the state’s health insurance program for children and cash assistance programs to low-income families in order to reduce the state’s budget deficit, San Diego safety net providers are prepping for what they consider a bleak future.

The governor is mulling the end of the state’s CalWorks program, which provides welfare assistance to 27,400 poor families in the county, as well as Healthy Families, California’s version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides medical coverage to 75,800 children and teens locally.

Officials said eliminating the two programs would save the state $1.4 billion in the coming fiscal year.

Health care leaders displeased with the proposal say it not only leaves patients in the dark, but would lead to overcrowded emergency rooms and costlier medical needs from patients who forgo routine care. They also worry that cuts to preventive health care programs and smoking prevention and cessation education could lead to worse outcomes.

“You can expect overcrowded emergency rooms and everyone can expect wait times to skyrocket,” said Connie Kirk, executive director of the Imperial Beach Health Center, which serves mostly uninsured and low-income people living in the South Bay.

Dr. Ted Mazer, an Alvarado Hospital physician who has provided medical care to the uninsured for 20 years, says he’s been stretched thin by increasing numbers of patients unable to pay for medical care. But forced cuts to poor and low-income medical coverage will only make things worse in the long run.


Rural Clinics Vulnerable

“What we need to do is be more focused; look at the administrative waste that goes on both in and out of health care, find the funds that we need from those sources without hurting individuals and the entire health care system,” he said.

Judith Shaplin, CEO of Mountain Health & Community Services in Alpine, says she worries the cuts will strike rural clinics like hers especially hard. As it stands today, federal funds provide two-thirds of the funding for states to run their Children’s Health Insurance Program. State money accounts for the remainder.

She estimates a $250,000 loss due to the program’s elimination, forcing the clinic to see patients only until its line of credit runs out four or five months later.

“With no ability to pay back the line of credit, then we’ll just continue to acquire debt,” she said.

Eric Banks-Consedine, director of government and community relations for SEIU Local 221, a union that represents health care workers, says he foresees trouble for community clinics across San Diego.

“Those who are already overburdened with work force reductions and cutbacks in their own program will have a harder time making sure people get access,” he said.


Patient Concerns

Patients, too, expressed concern about where the cuts might leave them.

Doreen Lee, 59, says she’s struggling to cope with $114 in cuts made to her supplemental security income, which threaten the medical care she seeks for herself and her 15-year-old son, who suffers from epilepsy and a rare kidney disease.

“It’s always an issue about where I’m going to get the health care,” she said.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has said the state has few options but to make tough cuts to make up for plummeting revenues unseen since 1999.

Schwarzenegger is also weighing cuts to other programs and services, along with asking cities to contribute funds, as he wrests with an expanding state deficit.

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