Imagine if you told your kid they could have dessert, but only if they ate all of their vegetables. Then, as you looked away, they quietly slipped their spinach to the dog before reaching out to receive dessert. Here you have what California is doing with Medicaid funding, and the whole country is paying for it.

After the state unwisely expanding Medi-Cal in recent years, the program has descended into a fiscal crisis. Now Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes to roll back some of the expansions, but it may be too little too late given pending actions at the federal level.

For Maria Paredez, the slashing of Medicaid funding is no political football, or some abstract argument emanating from Republicans in Congress about the size of government. It hits her where she lives: a small house in a small town in Tulare County, where she struggles to get from one month to the next.

There are still many unknowns about what cuts, if any, could happen to Medi-Cal, which covers roughly 15 million people in the state.

Medicaid is supposed to be a safety net for the poor, but California has turned it into welfare for the wealthy. In California, literally no amount of wealth now disqualifies someone from eligibility. Last year, the state eliminated its asset test for Medicaid, which the state refers to as Medi-Cal.

Proposed reductions in the federal funding "floor" could leave states facing increased pressure to sustain their Medicaid programs.