California Lawmaker Proposes Fix to Blunt Loss of Food and Health Aid

One of the more nefarious aspects of the GOP’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill is the underhanded methods it’s using to try to knock people off Medicaid and SNAP — that is, to deny vulnerable people both health insurance and food assistance.

In some aspects, that effort is transparent. Through H.R. 1, for example, President Donald Trump’s administration will disqualify American adults from assistance if they aren’t logging at least 80 hours a month of work, education or community service, a requirement that has never existed at the federal level. That could imperil millions of people who work but receive limited hours at their jobs.

But there’s another way the Trump administration thinks it can drive people off assistance: paperwork. Under the new rules, those on Medicaid and food stamps have to go through the process of requalifying for the programs every six months, twice as often as before — and each time, they have to provide new documentation of the hours they’ve worked.

Those requirements could be darkly effective as part of the GOP’s ultimate goal to cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid and SNAP assistance over the next decade, particularly as they affect people with limited access to the internet and those for whom English is a second language. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that red tape alone could force more than 2 million people off of Medicaid.

But that’s only if the plan works. In California, a bill making its way through the state Legislature aims to prevent that.

The proposal is simple in design. It builds on a state system of data collection that is already up and running. And if it’s successful, it could serve as an example to other states that don’t want their residents thrown off the critical assistance programs upon which they rely.

“There are folks who are trying to bureaucratize people out of their health care — people who are fully qualified and meet every test,” said State Sen. Christopher Cabaldon (D-West Sacramento), author of the bill. “We have to respond to that.”

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Cabaldon’s bill, SB 1054, removes the burden on workers to constantly report their own hours to the government. It authorizes the state’s Employment Development Department to collect that information directly from employers, then share it with the agencies that administer Medi-Cal and CalFresh, the state’s versions of Medicaid and food stamps.

The EDD already collects data from employers, including their workers’ names and their wages, which are used to determine unemployment benefits. The new requirement simply adds a category — hours worked — to the electronic information employers are inputting.

The benefit could be profound. According to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, the new federal requirements could knock between 1 million and 2 million Californians off Medi-Cal and some 660,000 off CalFresh assistance, either through insufficient work hours or “administrative burden” — the red tape of repeatedly having to requalify.

Instead, the same state program that automatically qualifies people for those supportive services can be used to document their work hours and keep them eligible. The system isn’t perfect – it does not account for hours spent volunteering, in school or in self-employment – but for many Californians, it could be a lifeline.

“We’re trying to solve a manufactured problem that was created by H.R. 1,” Cabaldon said. “It’s just a bald-faced attempt to have people fall through the cracks by turning the cracks into chasms.”

Cabaldon’s own interest in a state software system to maintain this kind of information dates to his time as vice chancellor of California’s community college system 25 years ago, when he was part of a push to use data to better connect students with job opportunities and make sure the schools were offering courses that prepared them for careers.

Under Gov. Gavin Newsom, state officials have also spent years automating the process of qualifying people for Medi-Cal and CalFresh. When people apply for insurance through Covered California, for example, the state uses the data they provide to automatically check on an ongoing basis if they’re eligible for the safety-net services.

That system has taken a significant burden off Californians who qualify for Medi-Cal or CalFresh, but it was a potential complicator under the new GOP rules. Since most residents weren’t filling out their own application forms for the safety-net services, they might not know about the need to prove their work, school or volunteer hours.

“The implications were profound,” Cabaldon said. “We’re trying to make sure that we are protecting people, eligible recipients, by also protecting the automatic processing system that the state has worked so hard to build on their behalf.”

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After passing unanimously out of the Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee, Cabaldon’s commonsense bill advanced to the Appropriations Committee. It will remain there for a while as analysts determine the fiscal impact of implementing it, but that cost is likely to be negligible thanks to the statewide data system already in place, Cabaldon said.

The bill, which faces no known opposition and recently garnered support from the conservative Little Hoover Commission, would take effect on Jan. 1, 2027, just as the brunt of H.R. 1’s onerous reporting requirements kick in.

Cabaldon’s hope for the legislation is simple: to hold the line for people who are fully eligible for — and therefore clearly need — Medi-Cal and CalFresh. The bill does not expand the pool of potential qualifiers, nor does it materially change anything about the Trump administration’s larger effort to eviscerate Medicaid and SNAP by denying funding and reducing payments to health care providers.

In that respect, SB 1054 is an attempt to fend off one or two of the more sinister aspects of Trump’s attack on the system. Having to craft a legislative response just to keep people level “is not exactly why I got into government,” Cabaldon said. “But where it exists, we have to meet that challenge.”

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