Salmon, beef, organic produce and Amy’s Kitchen meals: These are just some of the luxury foods that California welfare recipients can have delivered to their homes each week, for free.
Californians like TikTok user “Lupita” are taking full advantage. Earlier this year, she posted a video of herself opening a taxpayer-funded grocery box, apologizing to her manicurist as she unboxed it by hand. Inside, she found carrots, heads of broccoli, apples, oranges, celery, rice, lettuce and more.
“Yesterday, I was like, ‘I need some lettuce,’ but the lettuce was like $5,” she said. “And look at this. Fresh lettuce! Thank you, God.”
She can also thank Gov. Gavin Newsom. As part of his nearly $12 billion Medicaid reform package, welfare recipients — including illegal immigrants — can receive free, “medically tailored” meals and groceries, delivered straight to their doors. They can obtain foods for free that would cost ordinary people a small fortune.
The food service is part of CalAIM, Newsom’s multibillion-dollar Medi-Cal reform package. Signed into law in 2021, CalAIM directs Medicaid dollars to social programs like transitional rent payments and housing deposits. Newsom called it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to completely transform the Medicaid system in California.”
The transformation is working. The most popular of CalAIM’s “Community Supports,” by far, is “medically tailored meals.” That program and a related offering send prepared meals or “tailored” grocery items to qualified Medi-Cal recipients’ homes.
The state makes eligibility easy. Applicants need a qualifying Medi-Cal card, a provider’s recommendation, and an eligible condition. In a 2024 presentation to a Los Angeles nonprofit, Andrew Barrier, a former executive of a California medically tailored food contractor, told his audience how easy it was to enroll.
“They’re not looking to push people away from the program, they’re really looking for people to be on it,” he said.
From there, the food shows up at recipients’ doorsteps. Medi-Cal pays contractors to deliver the food for up to 12 weeks, after which eligible recipients can re-enroll.
And it’s not cheap: Across 24 weeks, between food and delivery, a single “medically tailored meals” recipient costs taxpayers more than $1,500.
Joel Pollak, NY Post
