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SACRAMENTO — Top California health officials warned that federal cuts will deliver a devastating blow to public health, even as the state grapples with ways to mitigate the damage.

“These changes will impact our emergency departments, rural hospitals, private and public hospitals, community health centers, ambulance providers and the broader health care system that serves every community,” said Michelle Baass, director of the California Department of Health Care Services.

Baass was among several experts who spoke Monday at a briefing about the effects of HR 1, a massive tax and spending bill passed by the Republican-led Congress and signed by President Trump that shifts federal funding away from safety-net programs for the vulnerable and toward tax cuts and immigration enforcement. She said the legislation makes sweeping changes to Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California.

It “will cause widespread harm by making massive reductions in federal funding and potentially cripple the health care safety net,” Baass said. “These changes put tens of billions of dollars of federal funding at risk for California and could result in a loss of coverage for millions of Californians.”

Roughly 15 million Californians — a third of the state — are on Medi-Cal, with some of the highest percentages being in rural counties. More than half of the children in California receive healthcare coverage through Medi-Cal, healthcare coverage provided to eligible, low-income residents, according to the state Department of Health Care Services.

California officials expect the state to lose billions of dollars in federal funding for Medi-Cal and other essential healthcare programs. Given that California is facing an ongoing budget deficit, it is highly unlikely that the state will be able to raise enough money to make up for the loss in funding to continue the current level of services to residents, according to a report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Baass explained the federal legislation creates new eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Starting in 2027, many individuals ages 19 to 64 will need to work for at least 80 hours a month, or perform 80 hours of community service or be enrolled in an educational program, to qualify. The law allows various exemptions, including pregnancy, disabilities, or caring for children under the age of 19.

She estimated 3 million Medi-Cal recipients could lose coverage as a result.

“This would significantly drive up the uninsured rate that raises cost for hospitals treating uninsured patients,” Baass said.

Baass said HR 1, which Republicans labeled the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” also bans abortion providers from receiving federal Medicaid funding — even for healthcare services they offer that are not related to the procedure — and reduces federal dollars for emergency medical care for undocumented immigrants. It additionally limits state funding mechanisms, such as taxes paid by managed care providers, and establishes federal penalties for improper payments.

CalFresh, the state name for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is expecting cuts of at least $1.7 billion annually, said Jennifer Troia, director of the California Department of Social Services. About 395,000 people could lose their benefits for government food assistance.

SNAP benefits are also being hit by the current government shutdown, with payments halting in November.

At the heart of the shutdown is a political standoff in Washington over the expiring tax credits for people who get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Democrats said they will not vote to reopen the government until Republicans agree to renew the expanded subsidies. Republican leaders refused to negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government.

Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimated over the summer that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out because of increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled.

Impacts from the new federal cuts and policies are already being felt across the state and nation.

A Planned Parenthood program in Orange and San Bernardino counties announced its imminent closure earlier this month due to being federally defunded. Los Angeles County’s health system has implemented a hiring freeze and is bracing to lose $750 million per year for the county Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. Meanwhile, food banks nationwide are seeking donations and preparing for longer lines.

Kim Johnson, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, discussed how California is fighting back.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced he is deploying the National Guard and fast-tracking $80 million to support food banks, she said. This came alongside the governor’s decision to allocate $140 million in state funding to Planned Parenthood.

Johnson said Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed more than two dozen lawsuits related to HR 1.

“Here in California,” she said, “we will continue to mitigate the harm of these federal changes wherever we can.”

The shutdown of the U.S. government has brought work determined by the Trump administration to be “nonessential” to a halt across the country as thousands of federal employees have been furloughed and ordered not to do their jobs.

The shutdown — the first in six years — began late Tuesday and could last days if not weeks. Many employees may not return to work at all, as the White House’s Office of Management and Budget recently advised federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown.

While much of the fallout remains to be seen, federal agencies that deal with wildfires, weather and disaster response — including the U.S. Forest Service, the National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency — expect to see some impacts.

Here’s what we know:

The U.S. Forest Service will shut down activities on more than 193 million acres of land across 46 states, including at least 154 national forests, according to the agency’s most recent contingency plan, published in September. Hundreds of recreational sites and facilities will be closed, while work on operations such as timber sales and restoration projects will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The Forest Service — the largest federal firefighting entity in the country — will continue its work geared toward responding to and preparing for wildfires, according to the plan. However, the agency will reduce some work related to fire prevention, including prescribed burns and the treatment of vegetation to reduce fire risk.

What’s more, the shutdown will delay state grants for forest management and wildland fire preparedness; delay reimbursement for ongoing forest management work on non-federal lands; and may affect states’ ability to train firefighters and acquire necessary equipment, among other impacts, the plan says.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection works closely with the Forest Service to manage fire preparation and response. Cal Fire officials said it does not anticipate any impacts to its ability to respond to blazes, and that the agency is fully staffed.

However, effects may be seen when it comes to federal grant programs that support fire prevention work in the state. For example, private property owners in California who rely on federal funds to conduct vegetation reduction work or create defensible space on their land may have to “front the money themselves” while they await reimbursement said Jesse Torres, deputy chief of communications with Cal Fire.

“The other thing is there are a lot of unknowns,” Torres said. “We don’t know what this is going to look like — is it going to be two days, two weeks, two months?”

Other agencies that play key roles in California’s disaster response and preparation — including the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — are largely deemed essential and will face fewer interruptions, according to their contingency plans.

“We are still operating in our core mission function and providing most of our normal services,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. That includes weather forecasts and extreme weather watches and warnings.

“The things that we do for public safety will continue as normal,” Kittell said.

About 84% of FEMA employees, meanwhile, are exempt from shutdown-related furloughs, according to its plan, which provides few additional details about which operations will cease or proceed.

Officials with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said FEMA staff have advised them that they will continue to make payments for existing disaster declarations made by President Trump, but there’s no guarantee that new or additional disaster declarations or funding will be made available.

FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund — the main source of funding for response and recovery efforts following major disasters — is also running low and is not likely to be replenished during the shutdown. It requires congressional approval for additional funds.

What’s more, FEMA, the National Weather Service and the Forest Service have already been affected by significant budget cuts and layoffs this year as part of the Trump administration’s larger reorganization of the federal government, which it says will help save taxpayers money.

These agencies, including NWS’ parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have lost thousands of employees to layoffs and buyouts and have experienced reduced operations, grant cancellations and the closure of offices and research arms.

The same is true for the EPA, which has undergone staff cuts and layoffs in addition to a considerable shift in its organizational priorities. The nation’s top environmental agency has spent the last several months loosening regulations that govern air and water quality, electric vehicle initiatives, pollution monitoring and greenhouse gas reporting, among other changes.

Experts said the shutdown could further weaken the EPA’s capabilities, as nearly all of its employees — about 90% — will be furloughed. While the EPA’s imminent disaster response work will continue, such as work on oil spills and chemical releases, longer-term efforts including research projects and facility inspections will halt, according to the agency.

Meanwhile, H.D. Palmer, a spokesman with the California Department of Finance, said impacts to the California EPA’s environmental programs should be minimal if the shutdown is brief, but that problems could arise if it drags on long enough to create backlogs and funding lapses.

The average length of government shutdowns over the last 50 years was seven days, Palmer said. However, he noted that the most recent federal shutdown from December 2018 to January 2019 — during Trump’s first term — lasted 35 days.

Seventy percent of the 20 most destructive wildfires in state history have occurred since fall 2017, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

To understand the pace and extent of rebuilding in the most significant of these fires, The Times relied on data from state and local governments.

The Times obtained data in February from the Cal Fire Damage Inspection Database, known as DINS, which documents buildings burned in wildfires. We filtered for residential structures — single-residence, multiple-residence and mixed-use commercial/residential — that were destroyed.

We limited our reporting to fires that destroyed 1,000 or more residential structures during this period — aside from January’s Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County. There were five: Tubbs (2017), Carr (2018), Camp (2018), Woolsey (2018) and North Complex (2020).

The Times analysis showed 22,438 residential structures burned in the five fires. About 75% were single-family homes, 23% were mobile homes and fewer than 2% were apartment, condominium or other multifamily buildings. Because of data limitations, a multifamily building was counted as one residential structure no matter how many units it had. In its reporting, The Times used “residential structure” and “home” interchangeably.

The fires destroyed homes across 16 local jurisdictions. To determine when and how many homes were rebuilt, The Times in March and April collected certificate of occupancy data from building departments in each community. Additionally, The Times accessed data from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, which regulates mobile home parks.

Using GIS software, The Times plotted coordinates in the Cal Fire data to match each destroyed structure to the city or county responsible for issuing a permit to rebuild it. From there, The Times merged assessor parcel numbers of destroyed homes from the Cal Fire data with those of rebuilt homes from local and state building data obtained from each jurisdiction. Finally, The Times summarized certificates of occupancy issued by day to plot the reconstruction timeline for each fire. For uniformity, the results are limited to homes approved prior to April 1.

The Times deviated from its methodology for a specific situation. The Tubbs fire destroyed a 162-lot mobile home park in Santa Rosa. Two apartment buildings for low-income senior citizens together comprising 132 units have been built on the site. Given that the Times analysis designated 162 mobile homes as destroyed, the analysis was adjusted to count the 132 replacement apartment units.

Overall, the analysis concluded that 8,420 homes have been rebuilt, 38% of those destroyed in the five fires.

The Times results could differ from reports published by some jurisdictions for two reasons: Local jurisdictions may have conducted more rigorous inventories of destroyed buildings than detailed in the Cal Fire DINS data and their rebuilding numbers can be continuously updated.

SACRAMENTO — A popular perk for California drivers of electric and low-emission cars is coming to an end.

Beginning Oct. 1, motorists with a Clean Air Vehicle decal will no longer be able to drive solo in carpool lanes because the program was not extended by the federal government, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

The carpool benefit was promoted as a cost-effective incentive to encourage Californians to buy clean and zero-emission vehicles. More than a million motorists have applied for the decal since it became available more than two decades ago. There are roughly a half million vehicles in California with active decals, allowing them to use the carpool lane alone. Last month, the DMV stopped issuing new decals and warned that the program could be ending.

Extending the program would have required approval from Congress and President Trump.

“A Trump traffic jam is on its way to California and other states – all because Republicans in Congress decided to let a wildly successful bipartisan program expire,” Newsom said in a statement. “That’s Trump’s America: more traffic, more smog and a government more committed to slashing proven programs than solving real problems.”

California is one of 13 states offering the benefit. Vehicles that qualified included fuel cell electric, natural gas or plug-in electric cars.

Last year, Newsom signed a bill that extended California’s decal program until 2027, but the state will no longer be able to continue it without federal authority, the governor’s office said. According to the California Energy Commission, 25% of new cars sold in the state are zero-emission vehicles.

Drivers in electric and low-emission cars will only be able to use carpool lanes after the program expires if they meet the multiple occupant requirements. The reduced toll rates available in some areas to drivers with a decal will also end on Oct. 1.

California law indicates that drivers will not be cited for driving in the carpool lane with an invalid decal within 60 days of the program ending.

“Californians are committed to lowering their carbon footprint and these decals helped drivers be good stewards of our highways and environment,” said Steve Gordon, director of the California DMV, in a statement. “By taking away this program, hundreds of thousands of California’s drivers will pay the price. It’s a lose-lose and we urge the federal government to retain this program.”

The program ends at the same time that a $7,500 federal tax credit for new electric vehicles expires.

The California Department of Justice will investigate a fatal shooting by Los Angeles Police Department officers under a law that empowers the state attorney general to probe police shootings of unarmed people — despite the LAPD saying the man killed Tuesday was holding a gun.

At 10 p.m. Tuesday, officers responded to a reported shooting in an apartment building in the 1000 block of Ardmore Avenue in Koreatown, LAPD officials said in an unsigned statement.

As they entered the building, Ronald Gainer Jr. exited an apartment holding a handgun, officials said. The officers fired at Gainer, who retreated into the apartment.

The officers entered the unit and took Gainer into custody, according to the LAPD. Gainer, 35, died at a hospital, according to the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s office.

Officers found a handgun and discharged cartridge casings “at scene,” the LAPD said, along with a second gun and ammunition inside the apartment.

According to the police statement, Gainer was involved earlier that evening in a “domestic violence incident” with his girlfriend. After she fled, Gainer allegedly fired a gun into the air and toward a building, prompting the response by the officers who shot him, the LAPD said.

The LAPD’s Force Investigation Division was already probing the shooting — standard protocol for all uses of force by officers — when on Wednesday
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced his office was investigating as well.

In a press release, Bonta cited Assembly Bill 1506, which requires the state’s Department of Justice to investigate police shootings of unarmed people.

Alexandra Duquet, a spokeswoman for Bonta, said state prosecutors will investigate cases when it isn’t immediately clear whether the person killed had control of a weapon.

Assembly Bill 1506 defines “possession” of a weapon as being “under the civilian’s dominion and control at the time of the shooting.”

Agents from the Department of Justice’s Division of Law Enforcement will conduct an investigation separate from the LAPD’s and present their findings to prosecutors in Bonta’s office, who will make a decision to bring criminal charges.

If no case is filed, state prosecutors must release a report detailing the evidence and the legal reasoning for why charges were not warranted.