If you have failed to accomplish the only important function of your job (dispersing taxes), you don’t get to go on holiday. You finish the job as quickly as possible, or you are fired with no hope of working in that function ever again.

In an emerging crisis for California’s elderly and poor, all Medi-Cal funding will be halted this week to an estimated 500 hospitals throughout the state and 11,000 nursing homes, hospices and adult day care centers.

Medi-Cal funds have run out because of the state’s monthlong budget impasse, forcing community programs and other facilities into a frantic scramble to cover their bills. Some care facilities for the aged are making plans to close.

But help is unlikely because both the Senate and the Assembly would have to approve an emergency bailout, and the Assembly has gone on summer recess.

Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Irvine (Orange County), said he is not overly concerned about the budget stalemate dragging out weeks or even months longer. He said the state continues to take in tax revenue and most agencies have plenty of money in reserve. (Read More)