Marin officials: COVID-19 financial aid to tighten

As the coronavirus crisis officially fades, Marin officials say they’re concerned about coincidental changes in federal food aid and Medi-Cal registration requirements.

California’s state of emergency over COVID-19, in effect since March 2020, will end on Tuesday. The federal state of emergency will conclude on May 11.

“For us it has felt like a natural ending of response activities,” said Dr. Lisa Santora, Marin’s deputy public health officer. “Our biggest concerns are on the economic side with the drop-off in CalFresh subsidies as well as the Medi-Cal continuous coverage.”

CalFresh — also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps — provides qualified applicants with an electronic benefit transfer card that can be used like a debit card at participating grocery stores and farmers markets.

During the pandemic emergency, allotments were approved that permitted CalFresh recipients to receive much larger benefits than they formerly would have qualified for. For example, a single person, who normally would have been entitled to $30 per month based on income, was eligible for up to $250 a month in aid.

Likewise, Medi-Cal regulations were relaxed during the pandemic. Normally, people enrolled in Medi-Cal must renew their coverage annually to verify they meet income requirements. That mandate was suspended during the pandemic.

Both CalFresh and Medi-Cal will soon revert to their former procedures.

The extra CalFresh allotments will end on Tuesday, but recipients won’t notice the change immediately because there was a one-month lag time in their dispensation, said Kari Beuerman, Marin County’s social services director.

“They will start feeling the pain of this in April,” Beuerman said.

The number of Marin residents receiving CalFresh benefits has increased steadily since the pandemic began, rising from 6,449 households in October 2019 to 14,325 today. Beuerman said 75% of these households will lose an average of $150 per month once the emergency allotments end.

“This represents a monthly loss of $1.4 million in benefits and $2.3 million in economic activity in the local economy,” Beuerman said.

April will also be a cruel month for Medi-Cal recipients.

“Starting in April,” Beuerman said, “notifications will begin to go out to beneficiaries telling them that they are once again required to do their annual redetermination in order to keep their coverage.”

There are 51,883 Marin residents receiving Medi-Cal coverage, up from 40,029 at the end of fiscal 2019.

“The loss of continuous coverage, which has been in place for the last three years, will have a significant impact,” Beuerman said. “Those who have changed addresses in the last few years or those who do not take action are at risk of losing benefits. We are not sure how many people may lose benefits, but the county is making a push to ensure that we have correct contact information for all beneficiaries.”

Marin Community Clinics provides medical care for the bulk of Medi-Cal patients in the county.

“We’ve begun direct phone calls and messages to any MCC patients that we have enrolled in Medi-Cal and where MCC is their authorized Medi-Cal representative,” said Leigha Andrews, the organization’s chief executive officer.

Andrews added that the state is doing a media campaign to notify both English- and Spanish-speaking Medi-Cal recipients that the public health emergency is ending.

While the changes to CalFresh and Medi-Cal are coinciding with the end of the states of emergency, there is no causal relationship. The changes were mandated by the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress on Dec. 23.

Santora said the ending of the states of emergency won’t result in any dramatic changes in the availability of vaccines or COVID-19 testing in Marin, since public health officials began ratcheting down those activities several months ago.

“We closed our large vaccine center at Northgate mall in December,” Santora said. “After Thanksgiving, we saw a dropoff in demand for the bivalent booster.”

At this point, more than 90% of eligible Marin residents have received their primary series of COVID-19 vaccinations; 75% have received a booster; and 41% have received the latest bivalent booster.

Santora said in September that insurance companies will be allowed to begin charging patients a co-pay to receive a vaccination.

“That change doesn’t happen for the Medi-Cal population until 2024,” she said.

Santora said the only COVID testing the county is doing now is at long-term care centers. She said the state and federal governments are dispensing the last of their inventory of free home test kits now, so anyone interested in stocking up should act quickly.

However, Santora said the county has allocated testing supplies to Marin Community Clinics and the county’s other federally qualified health clinics so that anyone who is uninsured or has Medi-Cal will be able to access test kits.

As of Thursday, Marin hospitals reported 14 patients infected with COVID-19, including six who were hospitalized because of the virus. Santora said she expects the number of Marin cases to continue to diminish following this winter’s peak on Dec. 25, when 36 hospital patients had the virus and 16 were hospitalized because of it.

This winter’s peak was lower than last year’s. On Jan. 27, 2022, Marin hospitals reported 54 patients with COVID-19, including 28 who were hospitalized because of the virus.

Several subtypes of the omicron variant are competing for dominance in Marin. Although the variants have become increasingly contagious, vaccines have remained effective at preventing life-threatening illness in most cases.

Santora said the big question now is whether there will be a summer surge as there has been in past years.