Latest California Healthline Stories
Committees Move Health Bills Forward
It is sausage-making time in Sacramento.
It’s the time where intense behind-the-scenes lobbying is going on over the many dozens of bills being held in suspense in the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees.
These are bills that require a certain amount of funding, so they can’t all go on to a floor vote in the state legislature. As one staffer put it, critical decisions have to be made here, because the state has more bills than money.
ED Crunch Not Necessarily Medicaid, Uninsured Issue
A study released yesterday by UC San Francisco showed a 23% increase in the number of people visiting U.S. hospital emergency departments over the past decade. Those numbers match a CDC report that came out a week ago.
The commonly held view is that rising numbers of uninsured patients and declining Medicaid reimbursements account for the spike in emergency room visits.
Not so fast, Angela Gardner of the American College of Emergency Physicians said.
When is a state tax not a state tax?
In California, when the going gets tough, the tough come up with a complicated, arcane funding solution.
To put it in the simplest terms possible, the state doesn’t have enough dollars in its budget, so it wants more federal dollars. And to get more federal matching dollars for the In-Home Supportive Services program, the state is planning to levy a 6% sales tax.
On itself. Which it will pay — to itself.
Law Takes Aim at Crowded Emergency Departments
California’s emergency departments are packed. As the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured across the state have grown, and their health problems have tended to fester and grow more acute, patients have been heading to emergency rooms in record numbers.
That means wait times have become much longer in emergency departments, and patient care is more likely to be compromised under the crush of increased demand.
A bill to address that problem — AB 2153 by Assembly member Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) — is one Senate floor vote away from going to the governor’s desk.
Temporary High-Risk Pool Welcome, Needed
The federally funded high-risk health insurance pool, one of the first major pieces of national health care reform to come into existence, is apparently more welcome — and needed — in California than it is in other parts of the country.
When the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board — the state agency in charge of California’s pool — announced premium rates and the companies that would be handling the program last week, state officials said they already have received 4,000 requests for applications.
In the 21 states where the federal government is handling the high risk pool, the combined total of applicants so far is 2,400.
Anthony Wright — executive director of Health Access and a veteran observer of the California Legislature — acknowledges that health care politics in Sacramento have changed a bit because of national health care reform, but he’s quick to add this is not a time for health advocates to sit back on their heels.
“It can always get worse,” Wright said, adding, “And without new revenues, it will get worse.”
Wright said Democrats are on the right track by identifying new sources of money in their budget proposal announced this week.
Health Reform Law Could Protect Health Care Programs
Although they’re keeping a close eye on budget battles in Sacramento, the level of concern among California health care advocates is tempered this year by the arrival of a large, powerful ally — the Affordable Care Act.
“For the most part, national health care reform has helped out greatly in that it has protected the state’s health programs,” said Kristen Golden Testa — health director for The Children’s Partnership, a national advocacy group based in California.
The Affordable Care Act includes “maintenance of effort” provisions that require states to retain services offered before the reform law was passed to be eligible for increased federal funding under the new law.
Déjà vu Again for Single Payer Bill
Single payer system advocates are nothing if not persistent.
Twice before, in the past two legislative sessions, the state Legislature passed a law to establish a single payer system in California.
And twice before, the governor vetoed it.
Ombudsman Program Tries to Follow Money
California’s long-term ombudsman program, a volunteer network governed by a state agency, is designed to represent and advocate for people in nursing homes and senior housing. In many cases, it’s the only forum seniors have to voice complaints and concerns about their living situations — which makes it an extremely popular program among seniors.
Right now, the state’s ombudsman program may be beloved, but it’s a beloved orphan.
Last year, the $3.8 million program was cut, and then lawmakers later restored almost half of it — $1.6 million. But now, even that temporary funding is gone, and officials have been scrounging to come up with enough money to keep the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program going.
Big Week for Health Legislation
The Legislature returns from summer recess today and members will need to hit the ground running. The deadline for passing bills is Aug. 31, so the packed agendas of the appropriations committees, both Senate and Assembly, need to be cleared out quickly.
The Senate appropriations committee has 203 laws on its agenda for today and Assembly appropriations is hearing 241 items on Wednesday.
Many of those, approximately 77 of them, are health care bills. If these bills are approved in appropriations, they go out for a floor vote. Here are a few of them: