Not long ago, Dr. Del Morris, the new president of the California Academy of Family Physicians, thinks he caught a glimpse of the future of Medi-Cal, the state's health-care program for the poor. And he shuddered. For a few days in mid-January, as the flu season peaked, so many new Medi-Cal patients "saturated" the emergency rooms of four Stanislaus County hospitals that ambulances often couldn't unload their patients, Morris said. The backup prevented emergency medical technicians from responding to calls, which firefighters handled until neighboring county ambulance workers were pulled in to help. As California grapples with 10 million Medi-Cal recipients - nearly 30 percent of the state's...
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