Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs $143B California State Budget
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) on Tuesday signed a $143 billion fiscal year 2009 state budget, a record 85 days into the fiscal year, the New York Times reports (Steinhauer, New York Times, 9/24). Under the budget, the 10% cut to Medi-Cal provider payments would be in effect until March 1, 2009, when smaller payment cuts would take effect. Medi-Cal is California's Medicaid program (Fernandez, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20). In addition, a provision included in the budget would require children enrolled in Medi-Cal to verify their eligibility every six months, rather than once a year. Children with disabilities and pregnant teenagers would be exempt from the requirement (Sanders, Sacramento Bee, 9/21). Premiums for Healthy Families -- California's version of SCHIP -- will increase under the plan (Schultz, Fresno Bee, 9/19).
With a budget in place, state Controller John Chiang (D) said that $3.6 billion in payments to Medi-Cal providers will go out within 48 hours. Until a budget was approved, California could not disburse funds to health care institutions, schools and other entities (Yi, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/24).
Before approving the budget, Schwarzenegger used his line item veto authority to cut about $510 million from the plan (Rau, Los Angeles Times, 9/24). The last-minute cuts eliminated an additional $153 million from health and human services programs (Joseph, Orange County Register, 9/23). The cuts eliminated $277,000 for prostate cancer treatment and $3.86 million from California's prescription drug discount program (Miller, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 9/23). The cut to the drug discount program is the second consecutive appropriation for the 2006 program that the governor has eliminated. The effort was intended to negotiate prescription drug discounts for Californians, but the state has not announced that the law has yielded any discounts from drugmakers (Los Angeles Times, 9/24).
Schwarzenegger said the Legislature likely would call a special election for 2009 to seek voter approval for elements of the budget proposal dealing with the state reserve fund and borrowing against lottery revenue (Los Angeles Times, 9/24).
