Email addressGet the news that matters to all Californians. Start every week informed.The health care industry is supporting a ballot initiative in the 2024 California election that would require money raised from a special tax on insurers to be used for Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income households. It would adjust the so-called MCO tax in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget.
But if voters pass the ballot initiative in November, they would effectively blow up that part of the deal. Under the initiative, Medi-Cal would get more money, and a different but bigger group of doctors and providers would get higher rate increases than what is currently in the budget. “It’s nice to give people insurance, but if they have no providers to go to, we haven’t done much,” Weber said.Weber, a Democrat, has not endorsed the ballot initiative. But during recent Assembly budget hearings, she criticized Newsom representatives for walking back earlier promises to increase rates. The budget deal partially reinstates rate increases — which Weber said was a “step in the right direction,” but does not go far enough.
Some of the groups who stand to get rate increases through the new budget include community health workers, private duty nurses, adult and pediatric day centers and children with. If the ballot initiative passes, these groups won’t get any money from the tax, which will instead be used to bump pay in other areas.
Proponents of the ballot initiative contend it’s not a winners vs. losers situation. Past governors and Legislatures have routinely raided the tax to fill state budget gaps. Their logic: The money comes directly from the health care industry and should go back into the health system. “They’re not very sympathetic to California. They want to say ‘California you’re so big, you can take care of yourself.’” Dooley said. “We have to dance pretty carefully in our relationship with the federal government.”