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California would be the first state in the United States to cover everything under its Medicaid plan regardless of immigration status.
California would be the first state to provide health coverage to all immigrants within its borders, regardless of how they got to the state, according to a new budget plan proposed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday.
Newsom’s proposal would use a portion of California’s growing budget surplus to provide health coverage through the state system to any low-income residents, regardless of immigration status. California already offers health coverage to immigrants over the age of 26 and over the age of 55.
California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, plans to start covering immigrants over the age of 50 in May. Newsom now wants state lawmakers to cover the rest of the uninsured immigrants by 2024 at a cost of $ 2.4 billion a year, The Associated Press reported.
Newsom’s proposals to provide health care to immigrants are likely to attract attention as the U.S. struggles with the ongoing immigration crisis. Earlier this year, the state did it COVID-19 vaccines available there was a sharp rise in coronavirus infections among farm workers. Newsom’s new plan was one of the policies it proposed on Monday aimed at reducing the state’s economic inequality.
Overall, Newsom sent a $ 286.4 billion budget to the California legislature, which analysts expect will have a surplus of at least $ 31 billion a year.
The governor’s annual budget proposes nearly $ 10 billion in new spending in five major “existential threats” to see Newsom deal with the situation: COVID-19, climate change, homelessness, the crime of inequality and violence, according to a record in the governor’s office.
The plan will set parameters for months of negotiations with Democrats who control the California state legislature over the top priorities of state programs.
Some progressive Democrat lawmakers last week proposed the creation of the nation’s first universal health care system in California, driven by tax increases that voters should accept.
On Monday, Newsom also proposed spending $ 648 million to protect forest firefighters and buy more helicopters and bulldozers, and another $ 1.2 billion in addition to the $ 1.5 billion in the current budget year for forest management.
Another $ 750 million would be spent on drought relief, in addition to the $ 5.2 billion water package for the current budget year.
Newsom pledged to spend $ 300 million to promote law enforcement efforts to combat retail theft and to spend another $ 2.7 million on coronavirus testing and hospital staff.
To address the state’s homelessness problem, he proposed spending $ 2 billion to clean up mental health services, housing and homeless camps. That would add up to $ 12 billion last year and create the planned $ 55,000 housing and treatment slots.
To support the rising cost of living in California, Newsom proposed “doubling” the state’s existing plan to provide a free and universal kindergarten; adding thousands of childcare intervals and encouraging summer school programs.
The coronavirus also proposed continuing to support small businesses hard hit by the pandemic, waiving fees and hundreds of millions in grants and tax breaks.
Newsom’s massive budgets and surpluses push the state away from the gloom of 2020 by Newsom and state lawmakers cut spending, raising taxes and taking money out of state savings accounts to cover what was feared to be a pandemic-driven deficit. That never happened. Instead, state revenues rose like never before.
In September, the state’s three largest tax revenues — personal income, sales, and corporation — were 40 percent higher than in September 2020 and nearly 60 percent higher than in September 2019, before the pandemic hit, according to the California Legislative Analyst Office.
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