Medi-Cal

The Assembly Appropriations Committee passed SB 1448 by Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Los Angeles) (Bill status, 6/28). The bill would require DHS to identify five Medi-Cal programs that are most effective in extending health insurance coverage to the uninsured and allocate federal funds to such programs. Allocations would be made for three years and participating programs would be required to provide local funds to receive federal money (Bill text, 6/22).

SB 458 by Sen. Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo) was amended to allow county boards of supervisors to establish commissions to provide expanded health care services to public agencies, private businesses and uninsured or low-income county residents. The measure would prohibit the use of Medi-Cal funds for that purpose. The legislation also would allow any county to enter into contracts to provide health services to residents who are eligible to receive health benefits under any public program if certain conditions are met. The amended bill eliminated a pilot program to provide health insurance to workers in chronically uninsured industries (Bill text, 6/27). The measure was rereferred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee (Bill status, 6/27).

The Senate Health Committee passed AB 3070 by the Assembly Health Committee (Bill history, 6/29). The legislation was amended to change what types of expenditures government agencies affiliated with designated public hospitals can use to claim pool funds for safety net care from a Medi-Cal demonstration project. The bill was amended to change the amount of stabilization funding to be paid to nondesignated public hospitals to 0.64% of the total funding amount. Amendments deleted a provision that would have required the annual amount paid to a nondesignated public hospital from the demonstration project fund be no less than 100% of the federal funding the hospital received in fiscal year 2002-2003 (Bill text, 6/26). The bill passes to the Senate Appropriations Committee (Bill history, 6/29).