In the midst of a grocery affordability crisis in the United States, California is reportedly allocating billions in taxpayer funds to provide free luxury meals to eligible welfare recipients, which includes undocumented immigrants residing in the state.
Participants in California’s Medi-Cal welfare program — comprising millions of undocumented individuals — are given no-cost meals and groceries, featuring items like salmon, beef, organic fruits and vegetables, as well as pre-prepared luxury health food brands weekly. This initiative is part of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s $12 billion Medicaid reform initiative known as “CalAIM,” according to a report from City Journal published on Wednesday.
Newsom’s office has not yet responded to inquiries from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
To qualify for this food service under CalAIM, participants need to be enrolled in Medi-Cal and indicate having some form of underlying health issue, such as a chronic illness or mental health condition, as reported.
Medi-Cal subsequently compensates food contractors in California using Medicaid funds to deliver these meals directly to recipients’ homes for a duration of up to 12 weeks. After this period, qualifying individuals can re-enroll, the City Journal details. One of these contractors, Project FoodBox, stands out as the largest Medicaid biller for the unspecified “meals” code S9977, which incorporates medically tailored food. Between 2022 and 2024, Project FoodBox received $67.8 million from Medicaid.
Another contractor based in California, now known as Bento Health, previously named Hunger: Not Impossible, acquired over $7.7 million in Medicaid funding to facilitate the connection between Medicaid health plan members and carefully curated grocery options, including luxury food items for undocumented individuals, based on findings from the outlet.
Bento Health’s website states that eligibility for its services “is not linked to immigration status, employment status, nationality, or any criteria other than the eligibility standards set by your insurance provider.”
According to the City Journal, these programs incur a cost of more than $1,500 for each recipient of “medically tailored meals.”
As of an August 12 report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center, nearly 14 million individuals in California are enrolled in Medi-Cal.
In 2024, the state expanded Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented immigrants, which now serves around 1.6 million individuals in need of free healthcare, as noted by the California Health Care Foundation.
While the state has suspended the ability for undocumented individuals to enroll in these programs, it still permits those who were already enrolled to retain their coverage, enabling qualified undocumented individuals in California to access state-funded luxury food boxes at no cost, according to the City Journal’s report.
This report follows the recent announcement from the federal government that it has deferred $1.2 billion in Medicaid funding to California.
California currently ranks as the state with the highest grocery costs in the continental U.S., where prices soar nearly 11 percent above the national average, according to a September 15 report from Visual Capitalist.
A recent study by the Urban Institute revealed that nearly 20% of working adults nationwide resort to using their savings to cover weekly grocery expenses due to high costs.
