California votes yes to freeze health care access for some immigrants

California lawmakers approved a state budget proposal that would freeze health care enrollment for immigrants without status

The California General Assembly approved the $325 billion budget ahead of a Sunday, June 15th deadline

Governor Gavin Newsom and lawmakers agreed on cutting enrollment in Medi-Cal for immigrants who can't prove they are in the country legally

Those already on the state-funded health care plan will get to keep their coverage, but will need to start paying monthly premiums

Lawmakers hope this will help close a $12 billion budget shortfall. The bill passed by a Democratic majority, but Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel and other Democrats did raise objections to some of its provisions

We cannot balance the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable. We cannot ignore the real challenges facing middle class and working families

but we also refuse to ignore the real fiscal challenges facing our state

We hope that the solutions presented in our legislative budget can help to guide that conversation and that together we can pass a budget that meets the needs of our diverse communities in this unprecedented moment

Assembly member Carl DeMaio says this plan doesn't go far enough and will hurt citizens

This budget contains $13.7 billion in accounting gimmicks. It is not balanced. Raids on reserves, fund shifts, pushing forward expenditures to future budget years

It underfunds public safety by not funding Prop 36, which is the voters priority and underfunding critical wildland fire risk reduction programs

A new survey from the Public Policy Institute of California shows a majority of Californians prefer to pay lower taxes with less social services

That's a drastic change from what that survey showed in the previous 20 years

For Straight Hour News, I'm Kaylee Carey. For more unbiased, fact-driven news, download the Straight Hour News mobile app today or go to san.com