Newsom’s Hearing Aid Program Bleeds Cash
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. This time, the issue is a state-funded pediatric hearing aid program that has burned through nearly $23 million while serving only a few hundred children.
That kind of math is hard to defend. According to state reports, the Hearing Aid Coverage for Children Program has about 300 active enrollees. That works out to roughly $76,000 per case. For a program built to help kids hear better, that is a brutal number.
The problem is not just the price tag. It is the setup. Five years ago, Newsom passed on a plan that would have required private insurers to cover hearing aids for children. Instead, he backed a state-run fix. The idea sounded good on paper. In practice, it turned into another expensive California bureaucracy.
Critics say the state spent too much on administration and too little on actual care. That is a familiar story in California. Big promises. Big budgets. Weak results. Families who need help are still waiting, while taxpayers keep footing the bill.
Hearing aids are not cheap, but they are nowhere near the cost this program has produced. The usual price for a pair runs between $2,000 and $6,000. Even at the high end, $23 million could have helped thousands of children if the money had been managed in a smarter way.
Instead, the state ended up with a slow, costly program and a lot of frustration. Advocates for children say the effort has dragged on for years without delivering enough value. Lawmakers are now asking the obvious question: why did California choose a system that costs so much and helps so few?
This is where Newsom’s broader record comes into view. California has seen plenty of huge state projects that run over budget and underdeliver. From transportation to housing to homelessness spending, the pattern keeps repeating. The state throws money at a problem, builds layers of oversight, and still fails to get real results.
For parents waiting on hearing aids, that is more than an accounting problem. It is a daily burden. Kids lose time they cannot get back. Families get stuck in the middle. And Sacramento keeps acting like more spending is the same thing as progress.
Newsom likes to sell himself as a modern problem-solver. But this latest mess looks a lot more like the same old California playbook: spend first, explain later, and hope nobody notices the waste.