California's New Medical Care Law and Program

"Every county and every city and county shall relieve and support all incompetent, poor, indigent persons and those incapacitated by age, disease, or accident, lawfully resident therein . ..."I "[T]he boards of supervisors in each county may provide... medical and dental care and health services and supplies to persons in need thereof who are unable to provide the same for themselves, and for these purposes may levy the necessary taxes. Each county may... provide the means to meet promptly and adequately the health needs of the indigent sick, the aged, and the poor, for the better prevention of serious illness and incapacity, to the end that such persons will not become public charges at the greater expense of those resources set aside for the public health and welfare."2 These sections, currently in the California Welfare and Institutions Code, embody traditional American policy: local responsibility for the care of the poor and medical care as a recognized welfare need.' Notwithstanding, state government support of medical care programs in California goes back as far as state government. It began in 1850-53 with a whole series of measures instituting a system of state hospitals, 4 investing public officials with quarantine and other public health powers,5 providing a compulsory pre-paid hospitalization plan for immigrants by sea0 and programs of direct relief and medical care for overland immigrants.7