California lawmakers voted Thursday to send $2.8 billion in additional funds to California’s low-income health insurance plan, Medi-Cal, to cover higher-than-anticipated costs as the fiscal year ends.

The move was part of a budget trailer bill, otherwise known as a “budget bill junior,” that gets funds moving before the start of the new fiscal year in July. The bill also authorized spending to support local governments affected by the winter Los Angeles fires, and allocated $181 million in bond funds to nature conservancies for forest resilience.

Republicans in both the Assembly and the Senate mostly opposed the passage of the bill, AB 100, and voiced concern about Medi-Cal coverage for undocumented immigrants. In the past few years, California has gradually opened up Medi-Cal to all income-eligible people, regardless of immigration status, despite pushback from the state’s Republican minority.

The Newsom administration attributed Medi-Cal’s unexpectedly high costs to a few factors: expensive pharmaceutical drugs, continuting COVID-19 era flexibilities, and a higher than anticipated caseload.

The $2.8 billion from the state’s general fund unlocks $8.3 billion in accompanying federal funds, and adds to a $3.4 billion emergency loan provided to the program earlier this year.

“There’s something wrong with Democrats’ priorities,” said Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher, R-East Nicolaus, in an emailed statement after the vote. “This spending bill throws nearly $3 billion towards benefits for illegal immigrants with zero accountability for how costs got so out of control.”

Democrats have countered that it is more expensive to keep people off of health insurance, and that the additional allocation is modest in comparison to the entire Medi-Cal budget, which was $161 billion in 2024 and covers about 15 million people.

“People are doing what we want them to do, which is to access health care instead of getting their primary care in the emergency room, which is even more expensive for taxpayers, and which is absolutely harmful to hospitals,” said Senate budget committee Chair Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, before the vote on Thursday.

During a Wednesday budget subcommittee hearing, some Democratic lawmakers called for a thorough investigation into how the system could cost less.

“I think that we could limit our expenses without dropping people and still have 95% of the state covered, if we were willing to say that there are things that are covered and there are other things that aren’t covered,” said state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas.

Distributed by Tribune News Service