CA-MediCal Cuts

California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed into law (March 24, 2011) more than $1.5 billion in cuts to the Medicaid program (Medi-Cal) and the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (Healthy Families), a group of local California agencies filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to prevent another bill signed by the governor from diverting almost $1 billion from child development programs to Medi-Cal. By law, funds for the programs cannot supplant state or local general funds, and cannot pay for existing levels of service, such as health care that the state already covers.  This new law would authorize the transfer of funds from the child development programs.