OAKLAND, Calif. — For three years, Bertha Embriz of San Francisco has gone without health insurance, skipping annual wellness exams and recently tolerating a broken molar by trying not to chew with it. As an immigrant without legal status, the 58-year-old unpaid caregiver knew that California’s Medicaid program was closed to her.
That changed in May, when California expanded Medi-Cal — its Medicaid program for residents with low incomes — to adults 50 and older, regardless of immigration status. The problem was that Embriz didn’t realize she would be eligible until she attended a community meeting in San Francisco.
“I’d heard that they were giving full Medi-Cal to people over 50, but I didn’t know that you didn’t have to be” in the country legally, said Embriz, who is waiting for her application to be processed. “Thank God I haven’t had any emergencies.”
