Medi-Cal patients, advocates sue Calif. over application wait

The lawsuit alleges that hundreds of thousands of people are going without health care as a result.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Lawsuit Accuses Calif. of Denying Care to Medi-Cal Applicants
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 (Gorman, 9/18).

The Associated Press: Medi-Cal Patients Sue Over Application Backlog
Medi-Cal patients and health care advocates filed a lawsuit against the state Wednesday for leaving hundreds of thousands of low-income and disabled people waiting months for care. The suit filed in Alameda County Superior Court aims to get the California Department of Health Care Services to process applications within a required 45-day time frame. One plaintiff, 68-year old Frances Rivera of Visalia, said she lost her adult son, Robert, who died from a pulmonary embolism while waiting to hear back about his Medi-Cal application. The application was approved two months after he died. Medi-Cal is the state's version of Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for poor, disabled and low-income people. The program's ranks have swelled nationwide under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, which allows more people to qualify in the states that decided to expand it (Lin, 9/17).