To: Board of Supervisors
From: Family & Human Services Committee
Report Title: Medi-Cal Update Post-COVID
☐Recommendation of the County Administrator ☒ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
ACCEPT the Employment and Human Services Department's report on post-COVID Medi-Cal, CalWORKs & CalFresh activities, as recommended by the Family and Human Services Committee.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact for this action.
BACKGROUND:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, states received increased Medicaid funding on the condition that they would postpone disenrollments as long as the federal COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) remained in effect. This “continuous coverage” requirement allowed millions of Californians to stay on Medi-Cal during an unprecedented health crisis.
The federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 specified that the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement would no longer be linked to the PHE. The requirement ended on March 31, 2023. Medi-Cal resumed its normal renewal processes on April 1, 2023.
Additionally, extra CalFresh pandemic funds were discontinued on February 28, 2023, making March the last month that CalFresh clients received the emergency allotment.
At the July 22, 2024 Family and Human Services Committee meeting, the committee accepted the attached report on post-COVID Medi-Cal, CalWORKs, and CalFresh activities and approved staff forwarding the report to the Board of Supervisors for their information.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
This report will not be received.