Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid Program provisions. Under existing law, an inmate of a public institution who is under 21 years of age is ineligible to receive Medi-Cal benefits for a specified period of time.

This bill, subject to the receipt of federal financial participation, would, until January 1, 2014, provide that Medi-Cal benefits may be provided to an individual awaiting adjudication in a county juvenile detention facility if the individual is eligible to receive Medi-Cal benefits at the time he or she is admitted to the detention facility, or the individual is subsequently determined to be eligible for Medi-Cal benefits, and the county agrees to pay the state’s share of Medi-Cal expenditures and the state’s administrative costs for the above-described benefits and implementation of these provisions. This bill would provide for continuation of the Medi-Cal benefits until the date of the individual’s adjudication, after which benefits would be suspended as provided in specified existing law, if the individual is an inmate of a public institution. This bill would set forth specified conditions that would affect the implementation of the above-described provisions.