Posted on 01/08/2015 11:02:39 PM PST by Nachum
Sacramento — California´s budget, which bounced back after years of deficits, is now being squeezed by rising healthcare costs for the poor and for retired state workers. The mountain of medical bills threatens to undermine Gov. Jerry Brown´s efforts to strengthen state finances — his central promise of the past four years. Enrollment in the state´s healthcare program for the poor, known as Medi-Cal, has exploded by 50% since President Obama´s signature law took effect. Although the federal government picks up most of the tab, state costs have also been growing, and faster than expected. Meanwhile, the annual bill for
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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Gee, who could have seen this coming? I’m totally shocked.
Another head of the beast.
Meanwhile, the annual bill for healthcare for public retirees — a benefit promised decades ago — has more than doubled in the last decade. Current and retired workers have accumulated $71.8 billion in healthcare benefits as of June last year, and the state has set aside almost nothing to cover the costs.
I just talked to a friend.
30 years old.
Cancer in remission.
$1,200 a month and all kinds of disalloweds..
$10,000 deductible
Wuh hawppen tuh pre-existing?
Horrid!!!
I sell health insurance in Californicate. All policies sold during ‘open enrollment’ are ‘guaranteed issue’. There are no heatlh questions.
Your friend with Cancer needs to ask the the doctors/hospitals he has treatment from which plans from the ones currently available will pay for the treatment he is recieving. Also, the only way the deductible is that high is if he is on an older plan or it is a family plan with a combined deductible.
It is not the preexisting condition limitations that get the consumer now, it is the restrictions on coverage inside the new policies by the contracts they are forced to sell. :(
Well...at least a high speed train to nowhere is being built. (Sigh)
Are the sellers forced to tell the "consumers" they're getting near worthless policies?
Excellent of you to point that out! Health care system that is being destroyed and never going to be fixed, and a train system that is being built that will never work. Two for two, Jerry Brown, that will bankrupt us all.
Don’t forget to now include as well “free” community colleges. With no federal legislation, “free” community college will be paid for by states. May be resisted in Texas and Oklahoma, but there will be zeal for it in CA, MA, NY, and so on. And, for TX, probably places like Austin will help in this treasury raid.
If California were its own country, it’d be third world by now. Haiti-like.....a few pockets of prosperity with lots of poor.
The thing keeping it afloat is the taxpayers from the other 49 states.
But that's not Jerry Brown's doing. That's all Obama the village idiot. Jerry is at odds with regents of the University of California system because he actually wants to cut their budget but the regents want to increase it. He's been fighting with UC President Janet Napolitano (yes, that one, Obama's former Sec of Homeland Security).
“If California were its own country, it’d be third world by now. Haiti-like.....a few pockets of prosperity with lots of poor.
The thing keeping it afloat is the taxpayers from the other 49 states.”
Unfortunately you are woefully misinformed (or you are just shooting off your mouth ignorantly). California is a net contributor TO the Federal government and substantially so. In fact, California on an absolute dollars basis is the top contributor TO the Federal Government, and our economy is the largest in the country by a wide margin.
You might want to review the chart in the link below. Maybe even the state where you live is, in point of fact, one of the numerous “freeloaders” that get back more than they pay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state
“Although the federal government picks up most of the tab....
Right. The money isn’t taken from the states, it’s just magical fedgov money!
“He’s been fighting with UC President Janet Napolitano (yes, that one, Obama’s former Sec of Homeland Security). “
Right you are! No fan of either Brown or Nappy ( and I am a graduate of UC Berkeley to boot, a place I now hate with a passion), but Nappy wants to raise tuition 10% to cover the $16billion shortfall she has in her employee pension system. This problem is a result of the UC Regents back around 2000 deciding that they could reduce contributions based on the returns they were getting that are now just sweet memories.
Yes, I’ve seen data like what Wiki presents elsewhere. It does a good job in defining exactly what the revenue side of the government income from state is but woefully incomplete in its description of the specifics of the payments to the states.
My questions on data like this would be something like this:
Does it include things like EITC payments to California citizens?
Are things like overall SNAP expenditures broken out from the total to show state data?
I just find it difficult to taken in that a state budget like CA has with its deficit and some pretty serious resource and energy problems, that it is such a producer that it is the “engine of the world” so to speak.
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