Jerry Brown's Plan for California

The honey moon is over before it started. Jerry Brown, the newly-sworn governor of California, revealed earlier this week that he will be engaging in a massive cut of many of California's budget to get the state closer to digging itself out of the deficit hole. The governor's plan also includes making the tax increases carry over for more years, as well as restructuring the way Sacramento operates.

According the San Francisco Chronicle, Governor Brown will cut a significant part of social programs such as Healthy Families, and California's Children's Health Insurance Program. While the governor's plan is a needed antidote for bridging the gap between what California makes versus what it spends, this plan is going to devastate a lot of low income people who rely on public assistance such as these, to get by. But even middle class people are not free from this cut.

The budget cut will affect families whose income level is 150% above the federal poverty level, as their insurance premiums will increase. There will no longer be vision care for those on state programs. An emergency room visit that normally cost $15 co-pay will now be $50. Those who are admitted to hospitals will have to pay $100 each day admitted, with a capacity to pay $200 each time admitted. The idea is to save over $135 million for the state.

Other areas of budget cut include In-Home Supportive Services and Medi-Cal. These two together will account for about $486 million in savings for the state. For the former, the cut will significantly reduce the number of hours a worker can provide care to those in need. It will also totally eliminate services for over 40,000 beneficiaries due to a more restrictive requirement for eligibility. For Medi-Cal, the new budget cut will save about $1.7 billion for the state, but it will put stress on thousands of families who will have to make do with the little they have.

The possibility of raising taxes on all Californians is also imminent pending the result of a proposed June special election. The new governor wants to raise taxes on income, sales and vehicle registration.

All in all, the governor's proposed plan will certainly affect all Californians in one way or the other, but it may be the only way we will truly live within our means and bring the state out of the more than $25 billion of deficit. But these of course, are his proposals; they are subject to debate and approval (some) by the people through votes, or by the state's lawmakers.

Source:

www.californiahealthline.org