California seniors could face stricter Medi-Cal savings limits again

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Many Californians with disabilities and seniors find themselves fighting for their health care for the second year in a row. Good evening. As always, thank you so much for joining us on To The Point. I'm Alex Bell. It's part of a larger negotiations as lawmakers work to pass a balanced state budget by June 15th. ABC 10's Becca Habegger joins us now to explain what's exactly at stake.

[00:00:20]Alex, tens of thousands of Californians with disabilities and seniors could be forced to choose between keeping their health care and keeping any meaningful amount of money in the bank. Governor Newsom wants to bring back strict limits on how much money you can have and still qualify for Medi-Cal and in-home supportive services.

[00:00:42]Hundreds of people gathered outside the State Capitol Tuesday for the California Disability Leadership Alliance Day of Action. It's heartbreaking, frustrating to be back here again, a year later, fighting the same thing again. Elizabeth Gaysinburudu from Stanislaus County is fighting against a change Governor Gavin Newsom proposed in his revised budget unveiled earlier this month. For decades, Californians with disabilities and seniors on Medi-Cal and those using in-home supportive services or IHSS were subject to strict limits on how much money they could have at any one point in order to remain eligible for services. An individual couldn't have more than $2,000. For a couple, the limit was $3,000.

[00:01:26]>> $2,000 doesn't get you a deposit on an apartment. Sabrina Epstein with Disability Rights California explains this limit is called the asset test. It does not count the value of somebody's primary home or vehicle or their retirement fund, but it does count someone's savings or checking account, cash, or a second vehicle if, say, a family has two cars. It just creates this very complicated economic, personal finance problem that quite frankly disabled people shouldn't have to deal with.

[00:02:00]>> Advocates successfully lobbied to eliminate the asset test starting in 2024. Last year to save money, Newsom proposed fully reinstating it. Advocates and lawmakers pushed back and reached a compromise with a limit of $130,000.

[00:02:16]We made it very clear that we are not going to balance the budget on the backs of those who are most vulnerable and certainly seniors and the disabled are in that group. Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo helped craft that compromise, but just like last year, Newsom again proposed fully reinstating the asset test in his May budget revision.

[00:02:37]>> and lowering the asset limit to $2,000, which would kick me and thousands of disabled Californians off of Medi-Cal and by extension IHSS as well. You know, for folks that means you can't have a a mortgage or rent that's over $2,000. I mean, it's so unreasonable. This is a This is a number that was set back in the '80s and >> Schiavo says she'll fight once again to keep the asset test where it is. But I think unfortunately, it's going to take a whole other push to be able to stop it again. The governor's office says returning to the strict asset test is projected to save the state about $278 million this coming fiscal year and about $496 annually after that.

[00:03:25]Just today, Assemblymember Schiavo and about a dozen of her colleagues submitted a bipartisan letter urging fellow assembly leaders to maintain the current asset test of $130,000 for a single person and avoid returning to the strict asset test of the past.

[00:03:40]Alex.

[00:03:42]All right, Becca. Thank you.