KQED on California Budget Cut Litigation

See this story from KQED's health blog.  It begins:

Trigger cuts have been the weapon of choice in many recent budgetary negotiations, most famously as the Congressional ‘Super Committee’ failed to come to agreement last month. 

But in California, where Governor Jerry Brown yesterday announced nearly a billion dollars in additional reductions to state spending, that budget gun is jammed, as advocates for the elderly and mentally and physically disabled have managed to thwart the automatic reductions by asserting that the state’s severe cuts — some $15 billion to health and human services since 2008 — are beginning to violate federal law. 

That defense has largely been the result of an aggressive legal strategy by disability rights groups, something witnessed recently when the state aborted a plan to eliminate funding for adult day health care centers in the face of a lawsuit by Disability Rights California. The centers offer health care services, shared meals and exercise among other activities and, most experts agree, help keep seniors and disabled people out of nursing homes.

California Healthline has more on the state's budget cuts.