Latest California Healthline Stories
Four Rules and Regs Health Policy Experts Can’t Wait To Read
Health policy experts list the upcoming rules and regulations that have the potential to shape the industry, such as proposals to implement health reform provisions like state health insurance exchanges and accountable care organizations.
Experts: Merging Regulators a Good Idea, but When?
Although no legislation or formal proposal is in play, California stakeholders are debating the merits and likelihood of consolidating health insurance regulation under one bureaucratic roof. Health care reform may offer an opportunity to merge the departments of Insurance and Managed Health Care.
Money for Nothing, as Program Put Off
Here’s a riddle for you: When is $85 million not $85 million?
The answer lies in the budget’s passage at the end of last week, when the governor approved the long-sought $85 million for adult day health care — but didn’t approve the program that went with it.
Couple that news with Friday’s federal approval of a Sept. 1 end date for the state’s adult day health care program, and you have a grim outlook for ADHC advocates, who had hoped for a smooth transition to the Legislature-approved replacement for the ADHC program.
Opponents Square Off on Rate Regulation
In the shadow of the elephant that is budget passage, the Senate held a hearing yesterday on legislation that also holds a lot of political weight — health care rate regulation.
“Of all the bills this year, and we’ve been involved in a lot of them, this one is the most important to us,” Gary Passmore of the California Congress of Seniors said at the hearing. “This one really matters.”
AB 52 by Assembly member Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) would take a step beyond the health insurance rate review that the state currently conducts. It would allow the state’s Department of Insurance and Department of Managed Health Care to alter or reject health insurers’ rate increases.
What’s on the Horizon for Adult Day Health Care?
It’s been eliminated, but part of it might not be eliminated. It’s a cost-saver, but it’s being cut to save costs. It’s a vital service to thousands of Californians, but apparently not vital enough. What happened to adult day health care centers? And what might keep them alive?
Trying to Quiet Rate Regulation Debate
The loud collision expected at today’s Senate hearing — between health insurers and those who want to regulate them — was expected to generate some serious verbal wreckage, and more than its share of media rubbernecking at the impact crater.
But committee chair Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) put the brakes on the rhetoric a bit, by making it a testimony-only hearing.
It’s an unusual move, hearing testimony one week and expecting to put the vote over to the next week. “It’s a little unusual to do that in advance,” Patrick Johnston of the California Association of Health Plans said. “Bills do get put over, of course, but doing it as a planned two-stage process is different.”
Unsolved Mystery: Could Secret Shoppers Have Helped Reform Law?
The Obama administration’s plan to use mystery shoppers to gauge physician wait times was abruptly killed on Tuesday. Health policy experts sleuth out why the program met its sudden end and whether it will hurt health reform implementation.
Decision Due on Fate of Adult Day Health Care
The state of California wants to eliminate its current adult day health care network by Sept. 1, and given the 60-day period required for implementation of that, federal approval for axing the program is expected to come this week — specifically, by midnight on Thursday.
For ADHC advocates, that gives new meaning to the phrase “drop-dead deadline.”
“If the governor’s budget assumptions are followed,” Lydia Missaelides of Adult Day Health Services said of the end-of-June deadline, “that’s the next big event.”
Is Assembly Bill for Physical Therapists, or Against Them?
Today’s the day, and you can almost hear the spaghetti-Western showdown music in the background.
Is AB 783 good, as its author Assembly member Mary Hayashi (D-Castro Valley) says? Is it bad, as members of the California Association of Physical Therapists (CAPT) attest? Only one thing is definite about this bill to define some parameters of the hiring of physical therapists in California — it has been ugly.
A vote on the bill is expected today in the Senate Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development. Last week’s scheduled vote was withdrawn by Hayashi, as she planned to meet with the opposition to craft a compromise solution.
Basic Health Plan’s Future Unclear in California
Although approved by the state Senate, a plan for the state government to offer low-cost health insurance faces several hurdles on its way to becoming law. The basic health plan could offer coverage with premiums as low as $30 a month to low-income Californians.