Subcommittee Votes To Help CalWORKS Kids
The dog-and-pony-show nature of the budget subcommittee hearings was upended yesterday in a hearing on health and human services cutbacks.
The surprising vote at the tail end of yesterday’s hearing comes one day in advance of a flurry of subcommittee hearings in the Capitol building today, with accompanying Capitol demonstrations expected outside.
Also today, the Senate Rules Committee is expected to confirm the appointment of David Maxwell-Jolly as the new deputy director of California’s Health and Human Services Agency.
Payment, Practice, Patient Protection Collide
It looked like one of those slam-dunk legislative proposals. SB 173 by Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) cruised through the Senate Committee on Health on a 7-1 vote.
No one expected much opposition in a hearing yesterday before the Senate Committee on Appropriations. In fact, committee chair Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) started to move along after the bill’s presentation without asking if anyone was opposed to the bill. “Oh, there is opposition?” she asked.
There was.
Closure of ADHC Centers May Be Expensive
It’s budget week at the Capitol. A slew of legislative hearings will deal with the newest wave of cuts proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D), most of which are expected to be approved.
The argument against health-related cuts almost always follows two points: The human toll of denying services is high; and in the long run, those cuts don’t actually save money. The reasoning is that health problems don’t go away and until people die, their health issues usually become more acute — and, in the long-term, more expensive.
In the case of adult day health care services, advocates say, the shift to higher-expense services has already started, and the state may not save any money, now or in the future, by cutting the $85 million needed to keep the program alive.
Time is Now To Reverse Hepatitis Trend, Experts Say
For years, advocates have been fighting hepatitis in relative quiet — but that may be changing, according to Rachel McLean.
“Last week the federal [Department of] Health and Human Services released its hepatitis action plan,” McLean said. “For HHS to say we’re going to do something, well, that’s a big deal.”
McLean is the hepatitis prevention coordinator for the state Department of Public Health, and she was part of a panel discussion yesterday in Sacramento. The event was part of the California Health Policy Forum, put on by the Center for Health Improvement and funded in part by the California HealthCare Foundation. CHCF is the publisher of California Healthline.
EHR Cost Savings Could Extend to Health Plans
Health plans don’t directly use electronic health records, but because EHRs could save insurers some money, health plans will want to do everything they can to make the EHR transition smooth, according to Patrick Johnston, president and CEO of the California Association of Health Plans.
Johnston’s organization put together a health care forum yesterday in Burlingame that focused on health plans’ involvement in the EHR movement.
“We as health plans do have a responsibility to address cost drivers in our own business,” Johnston said. “That which plans spend themselves and that which cause our providers to spend. And that’s a complex subject matter.”
Transition Money Designed To End ADHC
It’s a little complicated, when the governor sets aside $25 million for your program, and it’s a death knell for that program.
But that’s what has happened in the past week with the Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) program. The $25 million allocated by the state is to be used to help with a transition into program elimination.
That was the take-home message at a stakeholder meeting last Friday, and it was not exactly a vote of confidence from the governor’s office.
May Revise Targets Mental Health, Healthy Families and More
There were several major developments in California’s health policy world yesterday, with the release of Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) May budget revise.
It started with an almost offhand comment from Brown:
“We are eliminating the Department of Mental Health,” Brown said. Then later he added, “We want to eliminate 43 boards and commissions in California.” One of those boards facing elimination is the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB).
Mental health services and health care commissions aren’t the only things on the chopping block. Brown’s May revise also targets Healthy Families, and the state’s plan for adult day health care centers could be changing.
Senior Services Among Possible Budget Targets
Three innocuous-sounding words — the May revise — send shivers down the spines of health care advocates.
That budget adjustment is expected to be announced today (May 16), and Lydia Missaelides, for one, is worried.
“We’re all bracing for more cuts in the May revise,” Missaelides, executive director of the California Association of Adult Day Services, said, adding, “You know, we’re still in this politically sensitive position.”
Basic Health Program: Good or Bad for California?
The California Health Benefit Exchange board met earlier this week to discuss the possibility of setting up a Basic Health Program (BHP) as an alternative to one section of the exchange.
The BHP is an alternative to the exchange’s coverage for two sets of Californians — adults with incomes between 133% and 200% of the federal poverty level, and for legal immigrants with incomes below 133% of the poverty level.
Yesterday, a legislative briefing with a panel of experts was convened in the Capitol building to go over the idea. The briefing was co-sponsored by the Senate Committee on Health and by the California HealthCare Foundation. CHCF publishes California Healthline.
EHR Security Measure Might Have Hidden Consequences
The intent of SB 850 is relatively simple, its author Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) said yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
“Specifically, the bill requires the electronic health record to log a change or deletion, and that change or deletion note needs to include the identity of whoever made the change,” Leno said, adding “Without these requirements and protections, there could be real concern for the well-being of the patient.”
Changes to an EHR can go unnoticed and can be harder to trace than changes made to paper records, according to Leno.