Bill > AB1161

This bill addresses how public social services and Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid program) will handle recipient eligibility during states of emergency or health emergencies. For programs like CalWORKs, CalFresh, In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), and the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI), the bill requires that recipients automatically maintain their current benefits for at least 90 calendar days if they are displaced or affected by an emergency, even if they miss routine reporting deadlines. Counties must immediately restore eligibility for anyone impacted and accept the recipient's own statement about their situation without demanding additional verification. For Medi-Cal, the bill expands the definition of emergency impact to include disruptions in services like utilities, healthcare, transportation, and childcare, and allows the Department of Health Care Services to automatically extend eligibility for all beneficiaries in an affected geographic region. The departments must use automated systems to pause benefit discontinuations and send notifications to affected recipients. Implementation is contingent on not conflicting with federal law, and the directors of Social Services and Health Care Services are authorized to seek federal waivers and issue guidance to counties about implementing these provisions. The bill also specifies that no additional state appropriations will be made to cover these emergency provisions, and if the Commission on State Mandates determines the bill creates additional costs for local agencies, those costs must be reimbursed according to existing state procedures.

Budget and Finance, Health and Social Services

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1161