Latest California Healthline Stories
Plan for Autism Medi-Cal Benefit Rejected
State officials eliminated a plan to cover applied behavioral analysis — known as ABA therapy — as an essential health benefit for autistic children in Medi-Cal.
California Budget Puts Some Health Care Issues on Hold
State Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, considered a champion in many health care camps, acknowledged this year’s state budget fell short in a couple health care arenas, but he said the plan puts the state in a good position to increase health care spending in the future.
Bill Would Extend Private Plan Requirement To Cover Autism Therapy
An Assembly committee this week approved a bill to extend a requirement that private health insurers include a form of autism therapy in their California benefit plans.
Yamada Takes a Lonely Stand on ADHC Bill
A proposed bill to protect adult day health services was opposed by the people it was designed to benefit, and the author refused any amendments. Predictably, lawmakers rejected the bill.
Medi-Cal Dental Coverage Partially Restored
Northern California leaders of the campaign to restore dental coverage for adult Medi-Cal beneficiaries consider this week’s budget agreement between the governor and legislative leaders a partial victory.
Committee Finally Moves Health Reform Bills
The Assembly Committee on Health yesterday approved passage of two bills that made up the bulk of policy decisions in the legislative special session on health care.
Yesterday’s committee approval came the day after the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown hammered out a budget agreement. Some details of that pact have not been officially announced, including a provision for coverage of autism services. Autism coverage is implicitly contained — but could still be dropped — from one of the bills passed by the committee yesterday.
SBX1-1 by Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) would implement optional Medi-Cal expansion, paving the way for 1.4 million Californians earning up to 138% of federal poverty level to become eligible for the state’s Medicaid program.
Public Health Agencies Under Pressure To Curb Growing Valley Fever Threat
Robert Levin of the Ventura County Public Health Department and George Rutherford of UC-San Francisco spoke with California Healthline about the growing concern among state and federal officials over the spread of valley fever in California.
Could This Little-Watched Court Case Sink Obamacare?
A pair of lawsuits allege that a major part of the Affordable Care Act is technically illegal. Are these suits a real threat to the ACA, or the last gasps of conservative resistance before the law’s provisions go online? Depends whom you ask.
Autism Therapy Out of the Budget
Several health care provisions were conspicuously absent from the Legislative Budget Conference Committee’s budget agreement with Gov. Jerry Brown announced yesterday. The plan has no mention of repealing a 10% Medi-Cal provider rate cut nor a plan to fund autism services.
The agreement omitted a proposal to set aside $50 million in general fund money to pay for autism services. When matched with federal dollars, the state would have had $100 million to help pay for autism treatment, including applied behavioral analysis therapy, known as ABA therapy.
Whether ABA therapy will be covered as an essential health benefit starting in 2014 is still up in the air, but yesterday advocates were assuming the worst.
State ‘De-links’ Mandatory Enrollment from Duals Project
The Department of Health Care Services last week announced a new provision of Cal MediConnect that would establish a means of abandoning the state’s duals demonstration project if it doesn’t meet a financial benchmark.
The department also wants to “de-link” mandatory enrollment from the demonstration project, according to Jane Ogle, deputy director at DHCS.
“On the program side, we de-linked mandatory enrollment of duals. That way, we’ll have long-term services and supports as Medi-Cal benefits,” she said.