Also, the hospital where the octuplets are expected to spend seven to 12 weeks has requested reimbursement from Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, for care of the premature babies, according to the Los Angeles Times. The cost has not been disclosed.
Word of the public assistance has stoked the furor over Suleman's decision to have so many children by having embryos implanted in her womb.
"It appears that, in the case of the Suleman family, raising 14 children takes not simply a village but the combined resources of the county, state, and federal governments," Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten wrote in yesterday's paper. He called Suleman's story "grotesque."
On the Internet, bloggers rained insults on Suleman, calling her an "idiot," criticizing her decision to have more children when she couldn't afford the ones she had, and suggesting she be sterilized.
"It's my opinion that a woman's right to reproduce should be limited to a number which the parents can pay for," Charles Murray wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Daily News. "Why should my wife and I, as taxpayers, pay child support for 14 Suleman kids?"
She was also berated on talk radio, where listeners accused her of manipulating the system and being an irresponsible mother.
"From the outside you can tell that this woman was playing the system," host Bryan Suits said on the "Kennedy and Suits" show on KFI-AM. "You're damn right the state should step in, and seize the kids and adopt them out."
Suleman's spokesman, Mike Furtney, urged understanding.
"I would just ask people to consider her situation and she has been under a tremendous amount of pressure that no one could be prepared for," Furtney said.
In her only media interviews, Suleman told NBC's "Today" she doesn't consider the public assistance she receives to be welfare and doesn't intend to remain on it for long.
Also, a Nadya Suleman Family website has been set up to collect donations for the children. It features pictures of the mother and each octuplet and has instructions for making donations by check or credit card.
Suleman, whose six older children range in age from 2 to 7, said three of them receive disability payments. She said one is autistic, but she has not disclosed the other youngsters' disabilities, and refused to say how much they get in payments.
In California, a low-income family can receive Social Security payments of up to $793 a month for each disabled child. Three children would amount to $2,379.
The Suleman octuplets' medical costs have not been disclosed.
