Salmon, beef, organic produce and Amy’s Kitchen meals: These are just some of the luxury foods that California welfare recipients can have delivered to their homes each week, for free.

Californians like TikTok user “Lupita” are taking full advantage. Earlier this year, she posted a video of herself opening a taxpayer-funded grocery box, apologizing to her manicurist as she unboxed it by hand. Inside, she found carrots, heads of broccoli, apples, oranges, celery, rice, lettuce and more. 

“Yesterday, I was like, ‘I need some lettuce,’ but the lettuce was like $5,” she said. “And look at this. Fresh lettuce! Thank you, God.” 

She can also thank Governor Gavin Newsom. As part of his nearly $12 billion Medicaid reform package, welfare recipients — including illegal immigrants — can receive free, “medically tailored” meals and groceries, delivered straight to their doors. They can obtain foods for free that would cost ordinary people a small fortune.

The food service is part of CalAIM, Newsom’s multibillion-dollar Medi-Cal reform package. Signed into law in 2021, CalAIM directs Medicaid dollars to social programs like transitional rent payments and housing deposits. Newsom called it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to completely transform the Medicaid system in California.” 

The transformation is working. The most popular of CalAIM’s “Community Supports,” by far, is “medically tailored meals.” That program and a related offering send prepared meals or “tailored” grocery items to qualified Medi-Cal recipients’ homes. 

The state makes eligibility easy. Applicants need a qualifying Medi-Cal card, a provider’s recommendation, and an eligible condition. In a 2024 presentation to a Los Angeles nonprofit, Andrew Barrier, a former executive of a California medically tailored food contractor, told his audience how easy it was to enroll.

“They’re not looking to push people away from the program, they’re really looking for people to be on it,” he said.

From there, the food shows up at recipients’ doorsteps. Medi-Cal pays contractors to deliver the food for up to 12 weeks, after which eligible recipients can re-enroll.

And it’s not cheap: Across 24 weeks, between food and delivery, a single “medically tailored meals” recipient costs taxpayers more than $1,500.

The food itself drives much of the cost. California contractors offer beef, chicken, organic produce, and more. Over several months, these foods would cost ordinary Californians hundreds of dollars at the grocery store.

California’s medically tailored meal and grocery offerings seem to have been inspired by the “Food Is Medicine” movement. Proponents argue that sending people state-funded health foods will reduce hospitalizations, ultimately saving taxpayers money.

Their view has gained some traction. Earlier this year, a study out of Massachusetts found that receiving medically tailored meals was associated with about 31 percent fewer hospitalizations. In September, the House Ways and Means Committee voted unanimously to create a pilot program that would pay hospitals to provide medically tailored meals to discharged patients. 

But sending welfare recipients luxury health foods raises obvious questions. For one, what happens after the state stops sending the meals? And is this yet another free-food initiative, atop the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)?

In California, the answer to the second question is easy: Yes. About 90% of the people receiving CalFresh, the state’s version of food stamps, are also enrolled in Medi-Cal.

Companies across the country are cashing in on the Food Is Medicine movement. California-based contractors like Project FoodBox and Project Open Hand have raked in millions of Medicaid dollars.

Between 2022 and 2024, companies nationwide made nearly $100 million billing Medicaid code S9977, an unspecified “meals” code that includes medically tailored food. 

The nation’s biggest S9977 biller in that span, by far, was Barrier’s former company, Project FoodBox. Between 2022 and 2024, the California-based firm received more than $67.8 million from Medicaid. Since then, Project FoodBox has opened a location in the Bronx, where it hopes to advise “families and individuals” about “community-based services.”

Another large biller was California-based Hunger: Not Impossible, now called Bento Health. The firm billed Medicaid more than $7.7 million and describes itself as a “service provider that connects Medicaid health-plan members with curated groceries” — in other words, Instacart with a personal shopper. 

Bento will apparently send luxury food items to illegal immigrants. On its website, the company says that eligibility for its services “is not tied to immigration status, employment status, nationality, or any other factor other than your insurance provider’s eligibility criteria.” Bento did not respond to a comment request.

California law confirms this interpretation. In 2024, the state extended “full-scope” Medi-Cal coverage to illegal aliens. The state has since frozen illegals’ ability to sign up but allows previous enrollees to keep their coverage. Medi-Cal’s rules for these enrollees change next year, but until then, illegals with “full scope” coverage can access CalAIM’s “Community Supports,” including medically tailored meals.

In short, qualified illegal aliens in California can get state-funded luxury food boxes — for free.

We reached out to Project FoodBox, Project Open Hand, and other medically tailored food providers for comment, but did not receive a response. We also contacted California’s Department of Health Care Services, which argued that the food programs had “result[ed] in a 10.5% net cost reduction.”

The medically tailored meals program is expanding. Thirteen states now use federal waivers to divert funds to deliver medically tailored food.

In California, meantime, middle class families are struggling to buy groceries — and keep up with the cost of sending luxury foods to those on the welfare rolls.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America’s Cultural Revolution. Madeleine Rowley is a researcher at City Journal.

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