The new year opens with another Obama Care story.  It comes from California, as reported by The LA Times:

California officials never anticipated how many people would sign up for state-run health insurance under Obamacare.

The state's health plan for the poor, known as Medi-Cal, now covers 12.7 million people, 1 of every 3 Californians.

If Medi-Cal were a state of its own, it would be the nation's seventh-biggest by population; its $91-billion budget would be the country's fourth-largest, trailing only those of California, New York and Texas.

So 1 of 3 Californians is under a program originally designed to help the poor?  

Is the state that poor?   Medi-Cal was always a last resort insurance policy, or the place where you went to find health coverage if you couldn't afford a private option or had a preexisting condition or disability.  

Again is the Golden State that poor, or is this what happens when you tell people to sign up because the rich will pay for it.

The article does have an unhappy ending, or a reality check as my late father used to say:

The question California officials now face is how — and on days with a gloomier economic outlook, if — the massive health program can be sustained. 

Already, Medi-Cal is seen by many as underfunded, with patients struggling to find doctors and sometimes receiving low quality of care. 

A group of activists and others recently filed a federal civil rights complaint alleging that Latinos are being denied access to healthcare because the program does not pay doctors enough.

More proof that Obama Care, or its California version, was always about buying votes rather than creating a health care system.

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