Last Wednesday evening at a small public gathering in Santa Maria, Santa Barbara County Public Health chief Dr. Mouhanad Hammami quietly announced a major policy about-face and how 7,000 undocumented patients now receiving care at one of the county’s five Public Health clinics would not have to be transferred to other health care providers after all.
At least, for the time being.
The wholesale transfer was first publicly discussed and reluctantly embraced by the county supervisors October 7. Hammami argued forcefully at that meeting that the transfer was necessary to make sure the patients in question could be provided medical care because the Trump White House had issued an edict that no federal health care dollars could be spent on people without proof of citizenship. Agencies not in compliance with this order, Hammami warned the supervisors, were in jeopardy of losing all of their federal funding…