Latest California Healthline Stories
Did the Democrats Miss Chance To Protect Reform Law?
The 11th Circuit Court’s decision to strike down the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate raises questions for the law’s future, but also its past. Could the White House have better constructed its sweeping health law to avoid constitutional challenges?
Assembly ADHC Hearing Offers All Sides
Anyone who has been on vacation since the start of the year and missed Sacramento’s debate over the fate of the adult day health care program gets a chance to hear every part of it, all at once, today.
The Assembly Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care is holding a hearing today on ADHC — its importance to Californians, the reasons for its elimination as a Medi-Cal benefit, the details of transition for about 35,000 ADHC patients and the pending legal decision that could either approve or reject that state transition plan.
Department of Health Care Services Director Toby Douglas will attend the hearing and outline the state’s plan. ADHC advocates will make an appearance, as well, as will a representative of the legal team that is suing the state over its elimination of the ADHC benefit.
Rate Regulation, Basic Health Headed to Floor?
The state Legislature reconvenes today, starting with a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing with 167 items on the agenda. The Assembly’s Appropriations Committee meets Wednesday, with 184 items to consider.
Those numbers will be whittled down for this week’s hearings, but generally Appropriations is the final destination before an actual floor vote for any bill that might spend money. That’s why the two committees will have so many menu items from which to choose.
Among the bills that still need to clear the Appropriations hurdle is AB 52 — by Assembly members Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) — which is the health insurance rate regulation bill. Also up is the bill to create a Basic Health Program, SB 703, by Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina).
Inland Empire Health Information Exchange Near Launch
Health officials in Riverside and San Bernardino counties have spent the last two years planning and gathering stakeholders to build the region’s first health information exchange. About 15 hospitals and 2,000 doctors are expected to participate in the initiative.
American Indian Providers Get Help With EHRs
Christine Schmoeckel of the state’s Office of Health Information Integrity was pretty happy yesterday.
“Our newest news is that we have a fourth regional extension center in California,” she said. “This is great news, that we now have four centers.”
Schmoeckel was hosting yesterday’s California health information technology stakeholders’ meeting, in part because many health IT leaders are in Southern California this week, meeting with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
Uninsured Healthier Than Current Medi-Cal Beneficiaries
Helen Lee was surprised by a few of the findings in a study released last week by the Public Policy Institute of California.
“We find a relatively young population among the uninsured,” the PPIC policy fellow said. “In fact, more than half were in the 19 to 40 group.”
Up to three million Californians will join the ranks of the insured under the expansion of coverage in 2014 mandated by the federal Affordable Care Act. So it’s important to know the demographic makeup of all of those potential enrollees, Lee said.
New Trend in Sustainable HIEs: Fair Share Financial Support
Regulatory policy from CMS aims to incentivize health information exchanges to secure funding from other sources. Whether HIE initiatives can leverage this opportunity and secure funding from enough stakeholders will depend on a variety of factors, including payment reform.
State Lambasted Over Transition Plan, Lack of Communication
Jill Yungling was trying to hold in her exasperation yesterday, but it just kept spilling over.
“It is appalling to me how they can sit up there and say all of these things, and it’s all so full of holes,” Yungling said, “and we’re just supposed to sit down here and believe them.”
Yungling came from Carmichael to attend yesterday’s adult day health care stakeholder meeting in Sacramento. The California Department of Health Care Services convened the session to discuss the elimination of ADHC as a Medi-Cal benefit, a move that is likely to shutter most of the 300 ADHC centers across the state.
Fixing U.S. Workforce May Be a Job for … Health Reform
Health care remains the standout amid the nation’s flagging jobs numbers. Do the sector’s latest employment figures put to rest the “job-killing ObamaCare” argument once and for all?
Effort Aims To Fight Obesity by Bringing More Grocery Stores to California’s ‘Food Deserts’
Janne Boone-Heinonen of Oregon Health and Science University, Margaret Gee of the Bay Area Local Initiatives Support Corporation and Marion Standish of the California Endowment spoke with California Healthline about efforts to combat obesity by increasing access to grocery stores.