A key to getting this year’s state budget enacted on time was the removal of an element that legislative Republicans wouldn’t accept: state subsidized health care for uninsured children, even if they happen to be undocumented immigrants. At the time, both Governor Schwarzenegger and many Democrats promised they’d try again on the issue.

But as the legislative year comes to a close, it appears all but certain that the issue will remain off the table. On this morning’s edition of The California Report, we took a new look at the debate, and found two things. First, Republican opposition is still strong, meaning that even a policy change (enacted through a simple majority vote) would not include actual health insurance dollars for the counties running these stopgap programs… because spending money requires a two-thirds vote.

And second, the immigration issue is not the whole story. In Fresno County, for example, some illegal immigrant kids are still getting subsidized health insurance– because those children are under the age of 5. Meantime, some of the kids on the waiting list… the same waiting list that the governor’s $23 million proposal would have eliminated… are U.S. citizens.

My colleague Sasha Khokha and I teamed up for this story, which you can listen to here.