Latest California Healthline Stories
Premium Reduction Approved for State High-Risk Coverage
Change is coming for the 5,823 current enrollees in California’s Major Risk Medical Insurance Program, and it’s change they’re going to feel in their pockets.
Premium rates are about to go down to match the rates paid in the similar federal program, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.
The Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which oversees the state plan, voted last week to adopt the new premium rate cut that was made possible by a new state law.
Children Going Hungry ‘A Call to Action’
About 125 community leaders gathered in Yolo County last week to launch a new effort to end hunger in that county. The Yolo Food Summit brought together advocates, government workers and other stakeholders to brainstorm answers to the thorny problem of how to make healthy food accessible to people throughout the county.
It’s ironic that Yolo County is primarily an agricultural county and yet more than 17% of its citizens are food insecure. But that’s not the scariest statistic in Yolo County, according to Don Saylor, a Yolo County Supervisor who helped convene the food summit.
“The thing that is quite troubling to me is that 25% of children in Yolo County are food insecure,” Saylor said. “To me, that’s a call to action. When one in four children don’t have access to food in an area where … our economy is based on ag, that’s really troubling. This is a wonderful agricultural community, yet there’s this irony of hunger amidst abundance.”
Commissioner: CO-OPs Important Option for Low-Income Californians
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has high hopes for Consumer Owned and Operated Plans (CO-OPs), a new form of health insurance that will be allowed in the state starting Jan. 1.
The not-for-profit, member-governed plans are designed for individuals and small groups, including small businesses.
“One of the most pressing issues facing Californians is the lack of options for obtaining affordable health coverage,” Jones said. “CO-OPs can serve as one option available to nearly one million low-income individuals and their families.”
San Jose Democrat Working on Bill To Create Oversight for Health Apps
Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) plans to introduce in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill that calls for a new FDA office specifically designed to regulate health applications on smart phones and other mobile devices.
The new regulatory office in Honda’s bill, expected to be introduced at the beginning of the next session, would oversee apps designed for consumers, as well as those used by health professionals. According to a spokesperson in Honda’s office, there is not enough oversight for apps that consumers use to access health information.
“The office will be located in the FDA Office of the Commissioner, much like many other specialty offices (like the Office of Women, Office of Minority Health) are,” Honda’s spokesperson Michael Shank wrote in an email. The office’s goal would be to streamline regulation of what the FDA defines as health care technology, according to Shank.
Local, National Reforms Both Needed, Policy Leaders Told
BALTIMORE — Although their approaches may appear to be at odds with each other at the onset, a top federal bureaucrat and a national business leader assured health policy leaders Wednesday that government and commercial interests can work together effectively to reform the country’s health care system.
“We’ll figure it out together. We may not figure it out as quickly as people might like, but we will get there,” said Richard Gilfillan, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.
Gilfillan and Andrew Webber, president and CEO of the National Business Coalition on Health, shared the podium to deliver a tandem farewell address at the National Academy for State Health Policy’s 25th annual conference.
Health Policy and Winnie-the-Pooh
BALTIMORE — How health care is like A Bear of Very Little Brain:
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.”
— A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“That is what we are here to do — think of another way of doing things,” said Richard Gottfried, chair of the New York State Assembly Committee on Health and moderator of a well-attended panel on payment reform Tuesday at the National Academy for State Health Policy’s annual conference.
Educator Praises Health Policy Officials for ‘Noble Work’
BALTIMORE — “I would argue that what you face in health care is very similar to what we face in education — revenues are down and needs are up,” Freeman Hrabowski III said in his keynote address Monday at the opening of the National Academy for State Health Policy’s 25th annual conference.
Quoting poets William Carlos Williams and Maya Angelou and evoking the legacies of Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr., Hrabowski told state policy wonks “the work you do is noble, but the situations we face are not easy. It comes down to how you respond. Aristotle said ‘excellence is never an accident.’ I think we need to remember that as we move forward,” Hrabowski said.
Hrabowski — president of University of Maryland, Baltimore County and one of Time Magazine’s choices of the 100 most influential people in the world — did his homework before addressing the NASHP crowd.
AARP Study: California Faces Soaring Demand for Long-Term Care
California faces soaring demand for long-term care services, with a senior population expected to surge 90% by 2032, according to a new study by AARP.
The number of seniors age 85 and over — those most likely to need long-term care — will grow by 78%, significantly faster than the U.S. average, the report said.
Most people in that demographic category live below 250% of the federal poverty line and will probably qualify for need-based long-term care and other forms of public support, AARP researchers predicted.
California Making Progress in Digital Transition
California is making progress in its transition to electronic health records, state officials said Thursday in an update on the state’s eHealth Initiative.
“Electronic health records are really changing the quality of care individuals are receiving,” said Linette Scott, chief medical information officer for the Department of Health Care Services.
So far, California has allocated $775 million in federal funds to hospitals, doctors and other health care providers to support health information exchange technology, Scott said in a conference call. “It demonstrates a change in the way health care is delivered,” she said.
Obama, Romney Health Care Differences Detailed in Study
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would dismantle most of the federal Affordable Care Act and make sweeping changes to Medicare and Medicaid, according to a study released Wednesday by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research.
The side-by-side analysis of health care proposals in the 2012 presidential contest found stark policy differences between the former Massachusetts governor and President Barack Obama, said Shana Alex Lavarreda, the report’s co-author and director of UCLA’s Health Insurance Studies Program.
“I think the choice is very clear,” she said. “It wasn’t hard to find major distinctions.”