By Judy Lin
SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Medi-Cal patients and health care advocates filed a lawsuit against the state Wednesday for leaving hundreds of thousands of low-income and disabled people waiting months for care.
The suit filed in Alameda County Superior Court aims to get the California Department of Health Care Services to process applications within a required 45-day time frame.
One plaintiff, 68-year old Frances Rivera of Visalia, said she lost her adult son, Robert, who died from a pulmonary embolism while waiting to hear back about his Medi-Cal application. The application was approved two months after he died.
“It’s not easy watching someone you love go through this, and there’s nothing you can do,” Rivera said in a statement. “I just want to cry when I think about all the times we said, ‘He has this problem,’ and nobody did anything.” Read the full article here. »
