County to Begin Moving Toward Medi-Cal Takeover

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to launch a pilot project aimed at eventually taking over the state’s $252-million-a-year Medi-Cal program in Orange County.

Board members had delayed action on the ambitious proposal earlier, awaiting the outcome of a welfare limitation initiative on the November ballot and their own review of how all of the county’s medical services to the poor should be provided.

With both of those items out of the way (the welfare initiative failed), the board launched the first phase of a Medi-Cal pilot project, a program that will cost the county up to $370,000 to determine whether it would be beneficial to the county to actually proceed with full-scale assumption of Medi-Cal patients.

Under the Phase One study, county officials will develop a detailed plan for handling Medi-Cal services and draft changes in state and federal law needed for the program takeover. Associate County Administrative Officer C. Kenley Mays said the county will have to determine, for example, whether it will be allowed to make dramatic enough changes in the program to realize the cost savings that officials envision.

Robert Love, interim director of the county Health Care Agency, has estimated that the county could save as much as $30 million a year in Medi-Cal costs by administering the program itself.

Supervisors included a number of checkpoints in the pilot project, however, that will allow the county to back out of the program after the first phase is completed if it is determined that the county will not save as much as officials had expected.

Full takeover of the Medi-Cal program would cost up to $1.2 million, county officials estimate.