No one should have to choose between groceries and health care. But that\u2019s exactly the choice some immigrant Californians could soon face when monthly Medi-Cal premiums take effect in July 2027. This comes at a time when families are facing higher costs across the board, as energy prices pushed inflation to a three-year high of 4.2% in May 2026.<\/p>\n
Last year, state policymakers approved imposing a $30 monthly Medi-Cal premium<\/a> on certain immigrants<\/a> \u2014 including undocumented Californians, lawful permanent residents during the federal five-year waiting period, and other immigrants who are excluded from federal benefits. Now, Governor Newsom is proposing<\/a> to increase that premium to $50 per month. Unlike any other Medi-Cal recipients in the program\u2019s history, these Californians will have to pay just to keep their coverage starting July 2027.<\/p>\n For families already struggling with high costs of living, a new monthly cost may mean people will be forced to decide: groceries or vital health care. The graphic below shows how stark that tradeoff is for California families across the state.<\/p>\n California leaders have better options than forcing families to make impossible choices. Policymakers can raise new, ongoing state revenue by closing tax loopholes<\/a> and limiting costly corporate tax breaks<\/a> instead of increasing health care costs for immigrant families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No one should have to choose between groceries and health care. But that\u2019s exactly the choice some immigrant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-365965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}