Medi-Cal: A Potential Crisis Emanating from Project 2025

Medi-Cal (as Medicaid is called in California) is a lifeline for many in our community. That lifeline is now under threat. Project 2025, the far-right policy agenda, proposes cutting or restructuring Medicaid, thereby placing programs like Medi-Cal and thousands of lives at risk (2). Now, with the passage of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” austerity is here, and Project 2025’s proposal is becoming reality.

Eighteen percent of Tuolumne County residents – 9,930 people – were enrolled in Medi-Cal in 2023 (1). If Medi-Cal ends, the consequences would be devastating. Thousands would lose access to healthcare, including doctor visits, prescriptions, and preventive care. Routine treatment would become a luxury. Recipients would feel increased financial pressure and could face impossible choices to buy food or medicine or pay rent.

Reduced Medi-Cal reimbursement would strain local providers, including Adventist Health, Sonora’s only hospital, and its clinics. Emergency services and mental health care that rely strongly on Medi-Cal would be severely curtailed (3). Over 60 percent of nursing home residents statewide depend on Medi-Cal as the primary funding source of long-term care (3). Without this support, Tuolumne County’s elderly could be displaced, facilities would close, and families, already stretched thin, would be forced to provide complex medical care at home without training or support.

Many caregivers are aging themselves. Senior citizens caring for partners or relatives with dementia or disabilities rely on Medi-Cal for skilled nursing and in-home support. Without it, their only option for treatment may be the emergency room – or nothing at all.

Project 2025 proposes repealing federal rules that protect Medicaid access, including eliminating Obamacare expansions. That means rural counties like ours, where people are older, poorer, and more likely to depend on these programs, will bear the brunt of the fallout (2).

“Medi-Cal is more than a program. It’s the only thing standing between stability and devastation for many California families,” says Anthony Wright, Executive Director of Health Access California (2).

Get Medi-Cal Coverage

Even if you’ve been denied recently, you may be eligible now. Apply here: https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/Get-Medi-Cal/Pages/default.aspx

NOTES

1. “Medicaid Coverage in California Counties: 2023,” Center for Children and Families, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, February 6, 2025.
2. “Protecting Medi-Cal: What’s at Stake,” Health Access California, 2024.
3. “2023 Medi-Cal Facts and Figures,” California Health Care Foundation.