So, let’s see. You’re the New York Times. You’re a national paper, but you have a significant readership in California, so you want to cover the Left Coast every now and again. You’re not on the ground in California, but you have a few reporters hither and yon, and press releases a go-go from the Governor’s office. There’s a space in the paper for a California story, something that can show to the world the innovation and forward-thinking at work in the nation’s largest state. So you look over what they’ve done for the last few days.
On the one hand, the Governor, just months from failing in a quest to massively expand health care to millions of uninsured Californians, has decided to go in the complete opposite direction and force Medi-Cal enrollees to fill out all kinds of paperwork in the hopes of knocking thousands off the rolls to save money.
Administration officials expect the rule will result in 122,000 people being dropped from the rolls next year, saving the state $92 million – money that the governor’s staff has already counted against the state’s deficit.
The plan calls for about 4.5 million of the 6.5 million enrollees of the Medi-Cal program to file eligibility forms with the state four times a year. Under existing law, children, some disabled people and pregnant women must reapply once a year, while parents are required to report twice annually.
The chore of filling out a form and sending it to regulators might sound simple enough, but for Medi-Cal recipients such as Ernie Campbell of Novato, who has hemophilia, the danger of losing coverage because of an unanticipated problem, such as a form being lost or delayed in the mail, is a serious one.
“The renewal process is already a lot of paperwork and they warn you if you don’t get everything in on time you could lose your coverage,” said Campbell, 31. “I think this could probably affect me pretty negatively.”
Sounds like something you’d want to cover. You know, the story has an arc and some drama, with a callous Governor claiming the mantle of universal health care in public and trying to cast off the sick and the poor in private.
On the other hand, there’s this somewhat meaningless move to create a cabinet-level position for volunteerism, an effort to outsource normal government functions, and let them rise and fall on volunteer efforts. Seems like not much of a program at all, and certainly of less importance to everyday Californians than this plan to purge the Medi-Cal rolls. Anyway there are plenty of volunteer organizations that perform these functions all the time.
Of course, The Times went ahead with the volunteer story.
Under the change, the governor’s commission for volunteerism, California Volunteers, will maintain its staffing and budget. But its executive director will gain expanded duties as a cabinet secretary, playing a role in disaster-related planning and response efforts and coordinating volunteers at disaster sites.
The office will also manage donations that flow into the state for disaster relief, a responsibility now held by the state’s Office of Emergency Response. It is the first time a governor’s commission overseeing federal money to manage volunteers – panels required by law since 1993 – has been elevated to a cabinet role.
Really no change at all, aside from a change in the faceplate on somebody’s office door.
But that fit the narrative of the “Governator is teh awesome” much, much better. So off it goes to the front porches of all the Grey Lady’s readers.
And some people blame the 2006 election loss on Phil Angelides. Ho-kay.