- The nonprofit Partnership HealthPlan of California has a massive presence in the North State.
Health care officials across the North State are sounding the alarm as the federal government considers possible spending cuts for the Medicaid health insurance program covering low-income and disabled people.
Reducing money to Medicaid could lead to reductions for local medical providers and health care agencies, which could in turn hurt patient care, according to Redding health care executives.
“What happens to (Medicaid) can have a major impact on the health care delivery system in our community and to access to care,” said Dean Germano, who retired last year as CEO of the Shasta Community Health Center after 32 years.
Germano is now on the board of directors of Partnership HealthPlan of California, a nonprofit with a massive presence in the North State that manages benefits for Medi-Cal, the program that administers Medicaid benefits.
Both California and the federal government share Medicaid’s costs.
While no decisions on Medicaid cuts have been announced, one of the “biggest threats” for Medi-Cal health care providers would be changes to the formula used to determine what the federal government pays to doctors, hospitals and others to care for those patients, Germano said.
“A cut in that matching formula that I’m hearing is a possibility would put incredible pressure on the state of California to meet its obligations under Medicaid,” potentially leading to benefit reductions or cutting the number of people who are eligible for coverage under the program, according to Germano.
What’s ahead for Medi-Cal?
Any changes would need to be approved by the California legislature, not by the federal government, Germano said.
In November, Shasta and Siskiyou voters overwhelmingly passed California Proposition 35, which makes permanent an existing tax on health insurers. Those revenues will be used to pay for Medi-Cal services including mental health, prescription drug and primary, specialty and emergency care.
North State health care executives have been lobbying their elected officials on the matter of possible Medicaid cuts.
A group of leaders from community health centers, including the Shasta Community Health Center in Redding, recently met with Congressman Doug LaMalfa’s staff to discuss the impact of any Medicaid cuts, said Germano.
Asked for comment, LaMalfa spokeswoman Paige Boogaard said via email: “At this time, there are no proposed Medicaid cuts, with the exception of benefits given to illegal immigrants who should not have been covered anyways. Congressman LaMalfa continues to be in close contact with the White House and is monitoring the situation closely.”
Changes in the Medicaid formula might extend to other income-based health programs including Covered California, said Germano. In Shasta County, Covered California has steadily added members and now enrolls 9,950 people, out of 2 million members statewide, a spokesperson for the organization said.
“If you start fooling around with the matching formula, then that’s money that’s not coming to California, which means that California has a decision to make about whether it can continue to sustain the program,” said Germano, speaking of possible future situations for Covered California. “To me, the matching issue is the really huge kind of thing that could really make a mess of things in California with respect to covering the low-income up to middle-class folks.”
Partnership HealthPlan of California’s reach in the North State
In Shasta County, Partnership enrolls 66,000 individuals, or approximately 37% of the population, said the health plan’s spokesman, Dustin Lyda.
The percentage is higher in Siskiyou County, where 43% of the population, or 19,073 people, were members of Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, according to 2024 statistics from the UC Berkely Labor Center.
On a statewide basis, 38% of residents are enrolled in Medi-Cal, according to the labor center’s research.
In Partnership’s 24-county service area, Lyda said in a statement, there are 22,000 health care providers and 89 hospitals. “Any reductions to Medicaid would hit their bottom line, which could impact access to care for all residents,” Lyda said.
He said Partnership “is extremely concerned with the most recent budget resolution proposal to cut $880 billion, mostly from Medicaid. We don’t currently know the specifics on how Congress or the administration proposes to achieve those cuts — whether through work requirements (impacting only 6% of Medicaid recipients), block grants or other options.”
Michele Chandler covers public safety, dining and whatever else comes up for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Accepts story tips at 530-338-7753 and at [email protected]. Please support our entire newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
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