The California Con

The California Con

On Wednesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom gave his State of the State address.  The headline from the speech, in case you have missed it:

Calif. Gov. Newsom Proposes Doctors Prescribing Housing Like Other Medications to Combat Homelessness Problem

Oh sure, the “serious coverage” gets into all sorts of issues and complications to make this proposal sound far more legit than it is, but please, spare me.  That headline is truly accurate.  The proposal came in the context of a proposal for a “sweeping reform” to the Medi-Cal system.  For the Cleveland Browns fans out there, Medi-Cal is the system in the state to pay for health care for the indigent.   But more importantly a significant portion of the funding for Medi-Cal comes from the federal government.  So what we are looking at here is an attempt by the State of California to get money from the federal government for its self-inflicted homelessness epidemic.  California has been asking for federal money on the matter for a long time.

It is extraordinary that rather than even look at the policies they have enacted over the last couple of decades that have lead to this crisis, California points the finger at someone else and asks for money to deal with the problem that they will then turn around and use for more policies that will only make matters worse.  I know I’ll deeply cherish (sarcasm alert!) the impact on my life and property values when someone moves in next to me under the auspices of a doctor’s prescription with Medi-Cal funding.

But what moves this particular proposal from simply wrong-headed and typically prideful to truly malicious is the subterfuge and misdirection involved in this Medi-Cal scam.  California is willing to resort to trickery and deceit rather than face up to its own mistakes to solve a problem of its own creation.  Newsom’s proposal would be comical were he not deadly serious and trying very hard to sell this snake oil.  This is a con on a grand scale and can serve only to reduce people’s confidence in government and its elected officials – even in California.

They say the alcoholic needs to “hit bottom” before he or she can begin to turn their life around.  Right now I am not sure California has a bottom.

https://www.hughhewitt.com/the-california-con/