For example, the only state employees not getting paid - lawmakers, legislative workers and certain exempt employees - can receive interest-free loans. Businesses that have contracts with the state know the possibility of a budget impasse and often set aside a reserve; same with agencies that are dependent on the state - and have been through this before, many times.

"People have adjusted over the years," Pitney said. "But the longer the stalemate goes, the greater the pain becomes. As the reserves run out, more and more people begin to feel it."

Some already are feeling it. Those hardest hit at this point are smaller agencies and business such as nursing homes that are reliant on Medi-Cal payments from the state and don't have money socked away.

Matthew Steinorth is owner of Epiphany Care Homes, which runs 13 long-term care facilities for the developmentally disabled in Ventura County, most of which have six beds each. The facilities receive about 96 percent of their income from state Medi-Cal. The state's problems, he said, are eating into his and his wife's personal finances.

"Personally, I was due to close on a house in the back half of July," he said, "but without a state budget, I couldn't risk my deposit money going to the house and not being able to cover my payroll. I had to walk away from the house, which cost me over $100,000."

In 1998, state officials wrote a law creating a $2 billion reserve fund to pay Medi-Cal providers in the absence of a budget. That reserve was intended to cover two months of payments, but officials now say a combination of soaring health care costs and some changes in Medi-Cal accounting led to that fund being exhausted this year by July 26.

Legislation to expand that reserve to $4 billion was proposed, but state officials and legislative analysts at the time predicted the funds wouldn't be necessary and the bill has remained stuck in committee since May.

Medi-Cal providers have already missed one weekly payment of $228 million and are about to miss another payment of $212 million today.

Be prepared

But even with those missed payments, many anticipated and prepared.

Jeff Maggard, the administrator at Herman Health Care Center in San Jose, said his skilled nursing facility receives 90 percent of its revenue from Medi-Cal reimbursement. But he also has an emergency fund he socked away, good for 45 days, that's paying the bills.

"What I'm already doing is managing the payments I make and cutting out what you might call luxury items," Maggard said. "We're OK right now."

Most generally agree that the real impact won't happen for another month or so when those emergency funds run out - and lawmakers are likely to have a budget in place before then.

Why? Because while the budget process doesn't necessarily create a huge financial toll, there is a political toll to be paid when the public believes that lawmakers can't get their act together.

One way to exert that political pressure is to convince the public that the budget impasse is having a real impact. But that can lead to sky-is-falling hyperbole.

Case in point: A couple of weeks back, Schwarzenegger, frustrated that the budget impasse will prevent lawmakers from getting to his agenda, suggested that aerial firefighting efforts could be hampered - right in the middle of wildfire season - because three companies that supply plane parts were no longer being paid.

But a state official, when pressed, acknowledged there are dozens of other contractors that can still provide that service.

The governor's office also pitched a story this week about important repair work on Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta levees having been halted because the contractor was no longer getting paid - only to call back the next day and clarify that emergency funds were being used and work was proceeding.