Newsom administration misses deadline, loses out on Medi-Cal dollars

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration blew past an important federal deadline Monday — resulting in millions of dollars left on the table that would have been used for Medi-Cal care, writes CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang.

In November California voters approved Proposition 35, which requires revenue that the state receives from a tax on health care insurance plans to increase payments for doctors who accept Medi-Cal.

Because Medi-Cal — the state-run health insurance program for low-income residents — is funded with both state and federal money, California can use that tax revenue to request matching federal dollars.

But officials in the Newsom administration failed to submit the appropriate paperwork for federal approval in time for the March 31 deadline. That means for the first quarter of the year, doctors will not get the promised rate increases and California will lose matching federal dollars that would have supported the Medi-Cal program.

The director of California’s Health Care Services said the state’s federal application has been held up because the advisory committee that oversees Prop. 35’s spending still has unfilled appointments. With the committee scheduled to convene for the first time on April 14, Newsom’s office has not responded to CalMatters’ questions about why one outstanding position remains vacant.

In the past decade, lawmakers have expanded Medi-Cal eligibility, and the program now covers almost 15 million Californians. But doctors say the amount they get paid to see Medi-Cal patients hasn’t increased. Prop. 35 sets aside $2 billion a year for 2025 and 2026 to the state’s general fund and another $2 billion for higher provider payments and other investments. 

The missed deadline comes at a time of increased scrutiny over Medi-Cal costs. In March the Newsom administration said it would need to borrow $6.2 billion to cover a Medi-Cal budget gap, prompting immediate backlash from Republican legislators.

Read more here.

From CalMatters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu: 

Following a heated committee hearing, California Democrats on Tuesday voted down two Republican-backed bills that would have banned transgender students from competing in sports or accessing school facilities under the gender identity the students align with. 

The hearing came the day after the International Transgender Day of Visibility and weeks after Gov. Newsom espoused a conservative talking point on his podcast, saying that trans athletes’ participation in girl’s sports was “deeply unfair.” It was why Republican supporters of the bills evoked his name multiple times.

• Assemblymember Heather Hadwick, a Grass Valley Republican, at a post-hearing press conference: “Even Gov. Newsom agrees this is simply not fair. We must acknowledge the importance of spaces where girls can thrive without feeling overshadowed by unfair physical advantages.”

Democratic Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas, who appeared on the committee to vote against the legislation, said there was no “epidemic” of transgender children competing in sports: “I’m not going to support a bill that takes rights away from a protected class of people.”

It is rare for legislators to publicly vote “no” on bills, signalling that there was extreme distaste for these two bills in particular. 

Newsom’s office is reviewing a letter from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon that threatened to withhold federal funding from California if it continued to allow trans athletes in girl’s sports. His office declined to say anything about pending legislation but said Newsom “rejects the right wing’s cynical attempt to weaponize this debate as an excuse to vilify individual kids” and that he “takes a back seat to no one on these issues.”

Charlie Baker, the president of the NCAA, testified in December that fewer than 10 of the more than 500,000 college athletes in the U.S. were transgender.

From CalMatters housing reporter Ben Christopher: 

We all know the rent is too damn high.

In California, the cost of building a rental apartment is also too damn high.

That’s the takeaway of a new study from the research and policy think tank RAND, which found that it costs more than twice as much to build a privately-funded multifamily housing project in California than it does in Texas and 40% more than in Colorado.

The fact that California construction costs a lot is not news. Last week, a bipartisan group of legislators rolled out a package of bills aimed at making it easier to build homes. 

But the study appears to be the first of its kind in drawing on the financial data of actual projects. 

Jason Ward, the lead author, said there’s a constellation of reasons that California costs are so high. Many of them are related to local and state policy decisions. They include bountiful building codes, complicated approval processes, local impact fees, higher minimum wages for construction workers and extensive requirements attached to public funding sources. 

Perhaps most important is the way that all of the above slows things down. In Texas, the typical development timeline is less than two years. 

In California, it’s more than four.

State Sen. Susan Rubio has been questioned in a federal public corruption investigation, but denies any wrongdoing. CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on the probe into the West Covina Democrat as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

And check out a video from CalMatters climate reporter Alejandro Lazo and Robert on another investigation surrounding Southern California Edison and its potential role in the deadly Eaton Fire. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.