In the awful cloud of the Obamacare rollback approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, there’s a silver lining: health care in the Central Valley is going to get much more of the attention it needs.
The bill saw California’s Republican members of Congress vote for a bill that would cost millions their health coverage—specifically by cutting Medicaid and turning it into a block grant beginning in 2020. Already, health interests and Democrats have accused those members of thoughtlessly endangering people’s lives.
There’s not any good news in that. Except this. Gov. Brown, the media and other critics have pointed to the large numbers of people in the Central Valley districts of Republicans who voted for the health bill. Their argument: those congress members voted against their district’s interests. The Republicans have countered by arguing that they are trying to save their people from failing legislation.
Either way, that will shine a spotlight on Medicaid (or Medi-Cal, as we call it in California) and how well the people are served by it.
That’s good news because the subject needs more scrutiny. Obamacare has added millions of Californians to the rolls. And millions of children—half by some estimates in the state – are covered via Medi-Cal.
The potential loss of coverage for them will drive conversation and news. But hopefully, the controversy goes deeper. Because even if the current legislation is successfully blocked in the U.S. Senate, there are longstanding questions about the quality and timeliness of the care that Medi-Cal beneficiaries receive. Long waits for doctors, the difficulty of getting to specialists, lack of access to preventive care are all issues that need more attention – and better performance from state and federal government.
So while this legislation, passed without hearings or much analysis, isn’t welcome, the debate about it may be good for California.