A CROWD OF OLDER Chinatown residents, local leaders, and medical professionals gathered in San Francisco’s Portsmouth Square on Tuesday to denounce Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to cut spending on acupuncture services.
“Cutting this benefit will not save money,” said Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, during a speech at Tuesday’s rally. “It will shift the burden to emergency rooms, overloaded clinics and struggling patients. Protecting Medi-Cal acupuncture is a smart fiscal policy.”
Faced with an estimated $7.5 billion budget deficit in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, Newsom has proposed spending reductions in areas including Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid that millions of Californians depend on.
Part of the proposed cuts include eliminating acupuncture as a benefit covered by Medi-Cal. The cut would save about $5.4 million from the general fund for fiscal year 2025-2026.
Without coverage under Medi-Cal, acupuncture recipients would have to pay out of pocket for the treatment.
“This is an essential medicine. This is a life-saving medicine,” said San Francisco Supervisor Danny Sauter during a speech at Tuesday’s rally. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re saying this needs to be saved. It needs to be part of our budget.”
Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine in which thin needles are punctured into the skin. It is most commonly used for pain relief, and multiple studies show the effectiveness of the treatment, according to the National Institutes of Health.
‘Don’t cut what heals’
At Tuesday’s rally, advocates of the traditional medical technique held up signs that said “Californians need acupuncture,” and “Don’t cut what heals.”
Sauter represents San Francisco’s District 3, including the Chinatown neighborhood where there are dozens of acupuncture clinics that serve thousands of patients.
North East Medical Services, or NEMS, is a San Francisco-based community health center that serves primarily underserved populations, including many Chinese-speaking residents at its Chinatown clinic.
Since 2017, NEMS has recorded over 23,000 visits for acupuncture, with 90% of those visits being funded by Medi-Cal.
“This is also a cut that is targeted at this community, Chinatown in particular, AAPI, and Chinese residents of California that rely on acupuncture because they trust it and it works,” Haney said.
Eliminating acupuncture as a Medi-Cal benefit, opponents say, would strip many Californians of an essential pain treatment, raise health care costs in the long run, and lead patients to instead take pain pills such as opioids.
“They tried to take this away last year, the community fought back. The community’s going to fight back again.” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman
“Removing this health benefit will force especially seniors, but people in general into types of care that they do not trust, that is often more expensive,” Haney said. “It can force them to go onto medications that we are trying to get people off of.”
This is not Newsom’s first time aiming to slash funding of acupuncture treatment. During last year’s budget negotiations, Newsom proposed the same elimination of acupuncture as a Medi-Cal benefit.
However, he eventually decided to restore acupuncture in his budget proposal a few weeks before the June 15 deadline.
“When budgetary challenges come, it is too tempting and too easy to look at taking those funds and that funding away from our most vulnerable people” said Board of Supervisors president Rafael Mandelman. “They tried to take this away last year, the community fought back. The community’s going to fight back again.”
Passed down through generations
Shu Lin Han is an acupuncturist who operates a clinic out of Chinatown. He brought with him a wooden book that was handwritten hundreds of years ago during China’s Qing dynasty that describes the benefits of acupuncture.
He gave a passionate speech in Cantonese during the rally, which NEMS acupuncture specialist Lili Qiao helped translate.
“That book is kind of the acupuncture Bible,” Qiao said. “This book is talking about how acupuncture was used to cure or to treat disease back at that time.”
Supervisor Chyanne Chen, who grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown, said she is looking into developing a formal resolution for the Board of Supervisors to vote on urging Newsom to reverse his proposed cuts to acupuncture in Medi-Cal. During Newsom’s attempt to eliminate acupuncture as a Medi-Cal benefit in last year’s budget proposal, the board approved a similar resolution.
“Acupuncture is life-saving, acupuncture is cost-saving,” Chan said. “Hear us loud and clear. This is not a program to cut. We have to save acupuncture.”