SACRAMENTO — The state's healthcare program for the working poor received a temporary reprieve Monday when First 5 California's board voted to provide $16.8 million to avert imminent enrollment restrictions that were expected to leave 162,000 children without medical coverage in the next six months.
The money will allow the Healthy Families Program to continue enrolling children through the end of the fiscal year in June instead of capping enrollment, as state officials planned to do Wednesday.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, December 17, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
State budget: An article in some editions of Tuesday's California section on new funds to assist the state's Healthy Families program misattributed a quote about "phantom revenues that may never materialize" in a Republican spending plan. The quote was from Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), not his predecessor, Don Perata.
But the unexpected intervention, hailed by children's advocates, is only a stopgap measure as the Legislature remains deadlocked over how to erase a budget gap that is projected to reach $41.8 billion by mid-2010.
The severity of that problem was highlighted as Republican legislative leaders, who have been under attack for not offering their own solution, endorsed cutting $15.6 billion in funding for schools, healthcare for working-class families, and welfare, reducing many of these programs nearly to the minimum levels allowed by law.
The plan includes a $10.6-billion cut in school spending over the next 1 1/2 years, increases in class sizes at the state's universities and community colleges, and a 10% reduction in welfare grants.
The GOP plan would also seek voter approval to take $6 billion from pots of money the electorate set aside to bolster healthcare for children and the mentally ill -- including $2.1 billion from First 5, which voters created in 1998 and funded with a portion of the tobacco tax. Republicans want to divert that money to help pay for existing programs in those areas.
The $22.1 billion in combined savings from the GOP proposal, while larger than alternatives offered by either the governor or the Democrats who hold the majority in the Legislature, would still address only a little more than half of the anticipated budget gap.
Assemblyman Mike Villines of Clovis and Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the Republican leaders, said that they continue to oppose raising taxes, and that the plan would go a long way toward dealing with the state's long-term budget troubles. "If we had any of this in place, the problem wouldn't be as bad as it is today," Cogdill told reporters at an afternoon news conference.
