Plain Stupid, Plain Evil: Gov Gavin Newsom and his Medi-Cal Healthcare Insurance Plan

Governor Gavin Newsom and his Medi-Cal healthcare insurance plan is just plain stupid and plain evil. He and it are foolish and callous thieves, killers of the Spirit of healing, destroyers of the confidence and trust between doctors and patients, and annihilators of the goodness of our traditional California medical profession. He has replaced it with an evil, calculated, aggressive, genocidal, hoodwinking healthcare industrial complex, completely devoid of empathy, compassion, and caring.  Indeed, resentment boils in his gentle disguise, and he hates us. More on that later!

During my young, and now old adult life, I have been admitted to the hospital two times, once because of a college football injury in 1971, and now in February of 2026. I thank God for my good health, my experiences, and for recognizing His purpose for me to be right here in beautiful California right now, as a steward and promoter of His healing. I would exchange my life for absolutely nothing!

That first admission in 1971 was a powerful driving force that enticed me to stop being a football player and start being a pre-med student.  I needed surgery on my right knee, and that changed everything.  I loved that admission because of that injury, pain and all.  The light went off.  Now I could channel my work ethic, my desire, and my competitive nature into the delicate and gentle world of healing, and particularly the operating room, a dream I had from as far back as I can remember.

The second admission this year to a local hospital, involved in “the thick of” Governor Newsom’s Medi-Cal Healthcare Insurance Industrial Complex, was also a powerful driving force.  It enticed me to help you understand plain stupid, plain evil.  Because when you do, you are going to fix it, and that’s my dream for our future.

Following is an Explanation of Benefits, or EOB, related to my real time recent admission to the local northern California hospital I chose.  Let me point out that all four of the big players, namely Sutter Health, Dignity Health, Kaiser, and UC Davis, operate the same, and play the game with Governor Gavin Newsom and his Medi-Cal.  Newsom is the boss. 

What is an EOB?  It is a legally required document detailing how a healthcare claim was processed by Medi-Cal.  It is also a congratulatory statement on government savings.

The following statement reflects my recent TWO-DAY admission to that local hospital complex. 

Note the “bottom line” and ask yourself if this is affordable.  Total charge was $48,918.00!  My savings are $29,449.21!  Medicare (Medi-Cal) paid $17,656.20!  My health plan (more Medi-Cal) paid $1812.59!  Now look at the payment side of this bottom line.  My copay, deductible, coinsurance, and services not covered are $0.00!  Does that look smart to you?!  

Every “senior” in California who is by law FORCED to do healthcare business via Medicare (Medi-Cal) receives this legally required document detailing how the healthcare claim was processed.  Most don’t even know it, because there is one very attractive, all bold caps, five-word sentence at the top of the Medicare/Medicaid/Medi-Cal Summary notice along with the charge/payments flow sheet you see here.  That sentence is…THIS IS NOT A BILL. 

Where does this statement get filed?  You got it, the round file.  No worries here!  A case of pure DENIAL!

Have you ever shopped at Grocery Outlet? Well, I have. Grocery Outlet competes with Safeway and Raley’s, and your receipt is congratulatory, saying for example you saved $100.00 for this shopping cart full of groceries for shopping here instead of there. Same products, different store!

So back to the dollar number of $48,918.00, which is a wildly exaggerated, radically dishonest, marked up total of the cost of my hospital bed, the lab, the x-rays, the doctor’s work, the nurse’s work, the medications, and even the janitorial work associated with my getting a clean gown and being able to use a clean bathroom. All for a TWO-DAY STAY! That cost is WAY TO HIGH! And from my experience and wisdom regarding the true cost of these services that I utilized, they were all very, very substandard!    

And look at just how much money I saved by having Governor Gavin Newsom and his “wizardly adroit skill” via Medi-Cal save me, $29,419.21!  But you still must consider the payment he allegedly paid out of $17, 656.20 on my behalf, YOUR TAX DOLLARS, such that I could hobble out TWO DAYS later, discharged in perfect peace.   I did not feel peaceful in the least.  

How did I feel?  Very sad for you. The logjam of dishonest bureaucracy has completely paralyzed healing. That TWO DAY admission was despicable. Allow me to throw a little common sense medicalese at you. The workers were substandard.  The diagnosis was “community acquired bacterial pneumonia” requiring admission based on an x-ray demonstrating a left lower lobe pneumonia, fever, and an elevated white count with a left shift. The admitting physician never proved the pneumonia was bacterial, so she did what all sloppy physician slaves of Newsom do nowadays, which was treat me with broad spectrum antibiotics.

I got better but not good. On the second day of this admission, now not delirious, I posed a simple question of my attending hospitalist doctor on her morning rounds. I asked her if she would prescribe Ivermectin in an off-label fashion for me to take along with the outpatient antibiotics she ordered to complete my healing process. She scowled at me. The substandard nurse assigned to me asked her what Ivermectin was, and she scowled at him…” It’s horse medicine”, and the rest of his time helping me turned into hatred because of her outlash against him. The doctor told me that I need some education in vaccination knowledge and schedules and scurried out of the room not to talk to me again.   How’s that for bedside manner? It is substandard. She needs to be fired and replaced by a caring physician that understands the laws that govern God fearing physicians!

My assessment of that entire fiasco admission is very simple. It was plain stupid and plain evil. If I had the power, I would fire every single doctor and nurse and lab tech and x-ray tech and housekeeping person, including the CEO of the hospital. I would gut it, purge it, and start over!

What you and I really need in a hospital is a place of quiet, cleanliness, caring and gentle, competitive and highly qualified doctors and nurses, not hindered in their jobs, which is to end diseases that have entered you as fast and as safely as they can. They want to help you, not hurt you. There is a Spirit of healing present in a good hospital, and it’s easily and joyfully achievable.  

Affordability is key as well. Bureaucracy defines itself as an improver of society in the name of affordability and quality of life, but we see with Governor Newsom and his Medi-Cal healthcare industrial complex just the opposite. That is just plain stupid, and plain evil! Plain smart and plain good is business between a doctor and a patient, with no Medi-Cal sickness allowed!

The other day, I came across an interview that Governor Newsom had with Anderson Cooper of CNN in March of this year that I would like you to open and watch. It takes about 25 minutes, but I think is very telling.  Part of my job as a physician is to interpret human behavior. How does Newsom conduct himself? Sycophantically!  Notice all the humanitarianism, and feelings!  He looks troubled.

 Newsom faces scrutiny regarding the mischief of Medicare/Medi-Cal fraud, waste, and abuse that has been occurring for many years now. His evil is in the early stage of examination for all to see.  I think he’s scared.  This interview is essentially a plea for leniency for what is happening to him right now. He is getting DOGE’d to death! He is a victim of his own circumstances, and he’s trapped in a self-made prison.

Back at the start of this paper, I described Newsom as boiling with resentment.  My diagnosis is that he has played it out against you and I. It didn’t work. There is nowhere for him to go except obscurity. We say, should we punish him for all the evil and suffering he caused? My answer is no, because we all played a little stupid part in this situation. And our fear and cowardice of Newsom and his lawmaking machinery down at the capital is on us. Cowardice and evil are evil, a little wicked part in this situation. 

My stance is that we should develop a top-notch medical system devoid of bureaucracy, call it TEMSA-care. And we need safeguards, protection of our rights to the pursuit of free enterprise medical care, free of the California Medi-Cal industrial healthcare insurance complex swamp for good, accomplishable by expanding the ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Who knows, maybe Gavin’s light will go off, he will wake up like the rest of us and be nice, confess his evil, change his thinking pattern, and join us.  Time will tell.