Under a new county program, the poorest of San Diego’s residents will be able to come to health clinics like this one being built on El Cajon Boulevard for regular checkups, not just for emergency care. | Photo Courtesy of City Heights Life
By Adrian Florido
This year, San Diego County accepted $50 million from the federal government to launch a new program to improve health care for the county’s poorest uninsured residents.
Under the program the county started in July, poor singles and couples can now get health care benefits similar to Medi-Cal, the state’s safety net program that used to be only for poor, disabled people and families with children.
Over the next two years, the infusion of federal dollars will improve care for thousands of people in San Diego who earn less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level, about $1,207 a month for a single person.
Before, they could only get treatment if they needed urgent care. The new program will provide them with a primary doctor, preventive care and regular checkups.
Unlike some of California’s large counties, however, San Diego did not go as far as it could have to improve health care for low-income residents. It rejected millions more in federal dollars that would have allowed it to improve care for people who earned too much to qualify for the Medi-Cal program but still were too poor to afford their own health care.
Correction: In our original version of this story, we called the county’s new health care program for low-income people Medi-Cal. It’s not. It provides health care benefits like Medi-Cal’s, but it’s actually called the Low Income Health Program. The people participating in the program will be formally enrolled in Medi-Cal in 2014.