Health care providers struggling to keep their doors open during California's record budget impasse accused state lawmakers Friday of "criminal negligence" for endangering their patients.
"No financial or political battle is worth the life of even one Californian," Anne McLeod, a vice president for the California Hospital Association, said at a rally outside the Capitol.
Representatives of hospitals, nursing homes, adult care centers and community clinics at the rally said the state owes them more than $4 billion for Medi-Cal services since the new fiscal year began without a budget 68 days ago.
Charles Guenther, chief executive officer of Eastern Plumas Health Care, said his small hospital system is "six figures in the red."
Without money to pay vendors, employees whose jobs are in jeopardy have had to dig into their pockets to pay for laboratory supplies and keep the electricity on, Guenther said.
Patients in his rural area have nowhere else to turn for critical care. "This Legislature must pass a budget now," Guenther said. "Failure to act under the circumstances our community is facing represents criminal negligence."
Today marks the longest the state has gone without a budget being signed, breaking a six-year record. Lawmakers broke their record for budget dysfunction on Aug. 31 – previously the latest day a budget passed the Legislature.
With no end in sight, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, canceled a budget session Friday after waiting all week for Republicans to deliver a counterproposal that can be voted on.
The Senate is not scheduled to meet until Monday. Neither is the Assembly, which has not met since wrapping up its legislative session Aug. 31.
Peggy Goldstein, vice president of the California Association of Health Facilities, blasted the Legislature for its lack of urgency.
"While the Legislature goes on vacation, goes to conventions, goes home for the weekend, we're here caring for our people because it's our job," she said. "What is their job?"
Debbie Portela, owner of Casa Coloma Health Care Center in Rancho Cordova, is owed $770,000 by the state and does not know how much longer she can care for her 138 patients and pay her 120 employees at the nursing home.
"I look in the faces of my patients and I look in the faces of my employees and I have uncertainty," Portela said.
Call Aurelio Rojas, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5545.
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