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FOR RELEASE WITH A.M. PAPERS ON

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2004

NATIONAL REPORT CITES CALIFORNIA FOR

BOTH PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS IN HEALTH CARE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (January 30, 2004) – An assessment of health care in the 50 states, released here today, cites California for both significant positives and negatives in a variety of aspects of state-funded health care. The report appears in the February 20004 issue of Governing magazine.

Some of California’s local programs in providing long-term care for the elderly and disabled, as well as prenatal care, are regarded as national models, for example. The state also is widely recognized as having led the way for states to create preferred drug lists as a means of saving money for Medicaid.

On the negative side, however, California has one of the highest rates of uninsured citizens in the country and even people who are eligible for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, often have significant problems getting access to care. Like others, California also pulled back on its Children’s Health Insurance Program (dubbed Healthy Families) last year.

“These cutbacks are kind of sneaky, because instead of cutting back directly on eligibility, California used other means to discourage enrollment, such as cutting back on outreach or making enrollment more difficult,” says Katherine Barrett, co-author of the report.

Faced with an enormous budget deficit, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has now proposed freezing enrollment in the Healthy Families program, cutting $1.1 billion out of Medi-Cal, and cutting back substantially on provider reimbursements. In December, a 5 percent reduction in provider pay rates was blocked by the court.

Governing’s analysis of state-funded health care is part of the Government Performance Project, a six-year-old effort, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to evaluate a wide range of state government management and policy functions. This year’s special report focuses on six critical health care problems facing states: long-term care, public health, mental health, prescription drugs, access to care for the uninsured, and care for children.

The Government Performance Project found and documented the inability of the 50 states’ health care system to deliver improvements in medicine fairly and consistently to many of their citizens. Health care in most states is not just inadequate, the study concluded--it’s deteriorating. “After exhaustive analysis and hundreds of interviews,” says Peter Harkness, Governing’s publisher and editor, “it became clear that there is a health care crisis in America. But it is in no way a medical crisis. It is a fiscal crisis.”

Governing is a policy and management magazine aimed at high-level state and local government officials. An online version of this report, with additional material for each of the 50 states, can be found at www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm.

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