CALIFORNIA WELFARE AND INSTITUTIONS CODE

DIVISION 9. PUBLIC SOCIAL SERVICES

PART 5. COUNTY AID AND RELIEF TO INDIGENTS

CHAPTER 1. GENERAL PROVISIONS

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, when such persons are not supported and relieved by their relatives or friends, by their own means, or by state hospitals or other state or private institutions.

(a) The board of supervisors in any county may adopt a general assistance standard of aid, including the value of in-kind aid which includes, but is not limited to, the monthly actuarial value of up to forty dollars ($40) per month of medical care, that is 62 percent of a guideline that is equal to the 1991 federal official poverty line and may annually adjust that guideline in an amount equal to any adjustment provided under Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 11200) of Part 3 for establishing a maximum aid level in the county. This subdivision is not intended to either limit or expand the extent of the duty of counties to provide health care.

(a) Notwithstanding the decision in Caulk v. Superior Court, CO15355, June 27, 1997, a county's discretion granted pursuant to Section 17000.5 to include, as part of a general assistance aid grant, in-kind aid with a monthly actuarial value of up to forty dollars ($40) per month of medical care, was not intended, and shall not be construed, to do any of the following:

(1) Satisfy, in whole or in part, the duty of a county or a city or county to provide health care services to indigent and dependent poor persons under Section 17000.

(2) Permit a county or a city and county to cease providing health care services under Section 17000.

(3) Affect the eligibility of indigent and dependent poor persons for health care services under Section 17000.

(b) Subdivision (a) shall cease to be implemented if, and only to the extent that, a final court decision holds that subdivision (a) imposes a state- mandated local program.

(c) Subdivision (a) confirms, and is declarative of, rather than a change in, existing law, as provided for in Chapter 6 of the Statutes of 1996, which was intended only to provide a county or city and county with the discretion to reduce its general assistance grant level by up to forty dollars ($40) per month.