Latest California Healthline Stories
‘Budget Dust’ Councils May Get Second Life
Three health care advisory committees were on the May revise chopping block, but now an Assembly subcommittee has voted to keep them.
When Assembly member Allan Mansoor (R-Costa Mesa) found out that one of the commissions up for elimination — the California Commission on Emergency Medical Services — was composed entirely of volunteers who are experts in their field, and that the state pays only for travel expenses for a grand total of $9,000 a year, he wondered aloud about the urgent need to disband it.
“If we’re going to review a commission,” Mansoor said, “let’s find one with a few more zeroes after it, maybe we want to find a more expensive commission to eliminate.”
Advocates: Skimping on Mental Health Funding Has Consequences
Mental health experts say two disparate decisions last week — the Supreme Court ordering California to reduce its prison population and the state Legislature’s decision to improve security at state mental hospitals — are related to a larger, longstanding problem of chronic underfunding for mental health care in California.
Careful Steps in Dismantling Mental Health Agency
It’s a big move, eliminating an entire department of important state services.
Over and over yesterday, in two separate health and human services budget subcommittee hearings, officials insisted that eliminating the California Department of Mental Health was not a diminishment of services, but rather a reorganization.
“There are ways we can create better efficiencies, better ways of integrating behavioral and physical health,” Toby Douglas of the Department of Health Care Services said. “It will happen gradually, it will happen over the next year. We want to work with the Department of Mental Health, to make mental health an essential component of health care delivery.”
Wet Protest, Dry Policy in Capitol
Diana Dooley summed it up nicely.
“First of all, I wanted to thank you all for the heavy lifting you did in March,” the secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency said yesterday in addressing members of a budget subcommittee on health and human services.
“These were difficult proposals to make, and difficult ones to respond to,” she said.
“And, regrettably, it’s not enough.”
Where Do Brokers Fit in New Health Insurance Picture?
We asked experts and stakeholders to weigh in on a bill in Congress that would exempt insurance brokers’ fees from being classified as administrative costs under the Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio provisions.
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.
The Other Republican Health Reformer
As governor, one GOP presidential candidate oversaw dramatic health reforms in his state. His name? Tim Pawlenty.
Bridget Duffy of ExperiaHealth Discusses How Empowering Patients Can Help Improve Care
Bridget Duffy, CEO of ExperiaHealth, spoke with California Healthline about efforts to help patients navigate the health care system and the benefits of focusing on patient experience.
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.