By Amber Christ and Georgia Burke, California Health Care Foundation, October 28, 2020
One might think dual enrollment in Medicare and Medi-Cal should provide relief from health coverage worries, but many of the 1.4 million Californians with low incomes enrolled in both programs find it as much a struggle as a help.
The two systems don’t always mesh. They have different criteria for services and different bureaucracies. Sometimes there are overlaps in benefits, sometimes there are gaps, and there are seemingly endless paperwork and people to deal with.
That has been the experience of Chris Austin (not his real name), a charming 73-year-old Black man born in Barbados and raised in England before immigrating to the US. In his modest apartment in Los Angeles, he struggles to get the services he needs as he navigates the two confusing health care programs.
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