Why Trump Medicaid Changes can threaten CA’s housing services

In 2022, California made extensive changes to their Medi-Cal A program that has resumed what health may seem to some of the most patients’ residents by covering services from housing to healthy food. But the future of this program known as CalaimIt can be at risk at the Trump administration.

In recent weeks, federal officials have signaled that support for creative use of Medi-Cal funding has been declining, in particular the uses in which California has invested as assistance for rent and medical dishes. Medi-Cal is the name of California for Medicaid.

Movements are aligned with a more vision of Medicaid, supported by the newly discovered Medicare Centers and Medicaid Head Dr. Mehmet ozAnyone who said during his oath ceremony that the cost of Medicaid is accumulating costs for education and other services in the states with the federal government “pay most of the bill.”

“This one really bothers me. There are countries that use Medicaid – Medicaid dollars for people who are vulnerable – for non -medical services,” Oz said.

It also fits with a wider GoP calls to reduce the federal government. Medicaid is under control as part of a budget process led by GOP In the House of Representatives, which calls for a reduction of $ 880 billion in 10 years to programs, including Medicaid.

“The messages we want to go back to the basics of Medicaid sets all these programs to be at risk,” says John Bakes, a former La Care CEO, the largest health insurer in Medi-Cal in the country.

Calaim is authorized by a federal refusal that allows countries to experiment with their Medicaid programs to try to save money and improve health results. Under refusal California added additional benefits to high -cost users to help food uncertainty, housing instability., Use of substances and behavioral health challengesS

Rudely Half of all costs for Medi-Cal It may be due to 5% of consumers with high costs, according to state documents.

But in March the federal government Canceled instructions supporting Medi-Cal costs for social servicesS He also sent a letter in April stating that the Medicare and Medicaid Services centers will no longer approve a Financing mechanism that helps to support CalaimAlthough this money will continue until 2026.

Together, these moves should be worried that it is that the operation of programs like Calaim, said Katie Hampstead, a senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“According to the administrative administration of Biden, they were encouraged to experiment with such things: to prescribe people’s prescriptions in order to receive healthy food, to direct people to services based in the community,” Hempstead said. “This administration is not at all receptive to … this vision of the Medicaid program.”

In a press release, the CMS stated that this was the termination of costs that were not “directly linked to health services”.

“Installation costs, such as covering a household for persons who are not entitled to Medicaid or high -speed Internet for healthcare suppliers in rural areas, are distracted by Medicaid’s main mission, and in some cases serves as a very created state budget liability mechanism.”

These alerts from the federal government apply to future applications for changes to Medicaid and do not change current programs or funding in California. Calaim’s refusal of the state expires at the end of 2026 and another similar refusal that maintains California’s efforts to improve behavioral health care Expires in 2029

According to a statement from the Ministry of Health, the agency, which runs Medi-Cal, all programs “remain approved federally and act”.

“We appreciate our Medi-Cal suppliers and community partners and together we will run full steam forward to transform our health system and improve health results,” the department said.

Paul Sol, a reconciliation of the University of Boston University’s Laboratory Medicaid, said that decades of public health study show that people have worse health results that require more expensive treatment when their social needs are not satisfied.

“We have spent the last few decades in the Public Health and Health Policy, arguing that so much of health and medical expenses are guided by environmental factors – human living conditions, income, etc.” Said Shafer.

But, Safer said, programs like Calaim have been relatively recently and the survey does not have enough time to show whether paying non -traditional services saves money.

For example, Street medicine doctors in California Those who care for people who are homeless say that their patients often drive in and outside the emergency room – the most expensive point of service in the healthcare system. They have nowhere to recover from medical procedures, there is no address to deliver medication, and the constant exposure to the elements takes years of their lives, doctors say.

Kalaim gives them the opportunity to help their customers find a home.

The federal government’s decision not to finance such programs in the future is a “step back”, Shafer said.

“I think we can all read tea leaves and say that it means they are unlikely to be renewed,” he said.

Supported by the California Foundation for Health (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the necessary care when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.