By Anna Gorman, Kaiser Health News
California’s lingering backlog of Medi-Cal applications has left hundreds of thousands of people unable to access the health care they are entitled to receive, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a coalition of health advocates and legal services groups.
The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, says the state is failing to process applications within 45 days as required by law. Some applicants have been waiting to receive their Medi-Cal cards since the end of last year, according to the suit. The applicants include children, pregnant women and adults with life-threatening health conditions, who advocates say are either postponing treatment or paying cash to see doctors.
Medi-Cal is the state’s version of Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program for low-income Americans. About 11 million people receive Medi-Cal benefits in California, including 2.2 million who applied since January. Roughly 350,000 applications are still pending.
The lawsuit cites several cases, including that of Tulare County resident Robert Rivera, who applied for Medi-Cal in January but died of a pulmonary embolism while the state was determining if he was eligible for the insurance. Two months after his death, Rivera’s mother received a letter saying that the benefits had been approved.