Overall, it would greatly reduce “free care” at the local ER. I don’t know how it could possibly cause an increase. Universal coverage, except for some undocumented residents and those that choose to pay the penalty for not having coverage (again, I’m sure we agree on the “mandatory” elements of the plan), means that there wouldn’t be any free care for the tens of thousands of currently uninsured that have income and assets in excess of federal poverty guidelines and are now eligible for medicaid (Medi-Cal here in San Diego). It would also “cover” some employed undocumented, with their employers picking up much of the premiums.
Before the current economic downturn, a high percentage of the downtown homeless were a result of the severe cutbacks over the last 25 years to CMH budgets. When my wife worked in mental health, she hated going downtown because she saw too many of her former patients, former residents of mental health facilities, whose funding was eliminated. Now with the Governors proposed plan for the state budget crisis, cuts in the already meager funding put her current patients at adult day health centers at risk for the same fate.
