Medi Cal

California's budget crisis isn't reason enough to cut $1.1 billion a year in payments to doctors, dentists, pharmacists and other healthcare providers to the needy, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. A bill passed by the Legislature last year reduced Medi-Cal compensation by 10%, driving away even more providers from the shrinking ranks still taking state patients and endangering their ability to get treatment, a three-judge panel of the U.S.

Re "Medi-Cal effort nabs few cheaters," Oct. 6 We spent $16.6 million to deny eight people health services? As you wrote, "One congressional oversight committee found that the regulations cost the federal government and six of nine states surveyed this year $16.6 million in new administrative costs but resulted in snagging only eight illegal immigrants." The U.S. can further be proud of money-saving through its healthcare freeloading off Europe, which provides services to tourists.

Nadya Suleman has 14 children, including newborn octuplets. She has no job, no income and owes $50,000 in student loans. Still, the 33-year-old Whittier woman said she's confident that she can afford to raise her huge family, insisting she can do it without welfare. In an interview Tuesday with NBC, she said she could use student loans to make ends meet until she finishes graduate school and gets a job.

Los Angeles County health worker Leonardo Rincon lifts the birth certificate up to the light and expertly scrutinizes it. Do faint watermarks show up? Yes. He rubs his thumb over the official seal to see if it is raised. It is. He checks the number of digits in the document number. Perfect. Ruth Torres, he decides, has brought in valid U.S. birth certificates for her six children, a valid U.S. passport for her husband and a valid green card for herself, a legal immigrant from Mexico.

A new statewide study has found that a federal requirement to check the citizenship of all Medi-Cal applicants has imposed significant burdens on California's 58 counties but that officials have not reported any cases of existing recipients who had falsely claimed U.S. citizenship. The study by the California Endowment and the California Healthcare Foundation, released this week, found that the requirement in particular made it harder for the homeless, mentally ill, people born outside California and children over age 16 to access public healthcare.

Re "Octuplets' care could end up costing taxpayers millions," Feb. 11 We have been reading about Nadya Suleman, mother of the octuplets, now having 14 children to raise. We read about the welfare payments that Suleman has been receiving even before the octuplets were born, about Kaiser Permanente billing Medi-Cal for the delivery and care of the mother and babies, and about the speculation of who will financially support the children. How about the father of the children? Doesn't a father have responsibility for the financial support of his children?

The former co-owner and board chairman of City of Angels Medical Center pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court to paying illegal kickbacks in a scheme to defraud Medicare and Medi-Cal. Robert Bourseau, 74, is the fourth person to plead guilty in a widespread plan to exploit those living on the streets for their medical benefits. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison. Bourseau has agreed to pay more than $4.1 million to Medicare and Medi-Cal. -- Richard Winton

Twenty people were arrested Thursday in an alleged $4.6-million Medi-Cal fraud scheme that law enforcement officials claim used unlicensed individuals to provide in-home nursing care for disabled patients. About 75 patients, many of them children with cerebral palsy or developmental disabilities, were treated by unlicensed individuals who stole identities to pose as licensed nurses, according to the United States attorney's office. None of the patients suffered life-threatening injuries.

Re "Easy to be hard," Editorial, Aug. 1 In his 1936 speech announcing the second New Deal, Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eagerly wielded his pen to cut the In-Home Supportive Services program funded by Medi-Cal that allows disabled people and seniors to live in their homes. He supported the Nursing Home Quality Care Act, which will funnel millions of federal Medi-Cal dollars into institutions that destroy people's right to self-determination and the pursuit of happiness.