Latest California Healthline Stories
Bill To Create Basic Health Program Delayed
The two biggest health care bills this year will have to wait till next year.
First it was AB 52, the bill to regulate health insurance rate hikes, that did not make it out of appropriations committee, and will wait till 2012 to be heard again. And now it’s SB 703 by Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), which would establish a Basic Health Program in California.
“It’s official now, it is a two-year bill,” according to John Ramey, executive director of Local Health Plans of California.
Finance May Look at Continuing Costs Left by ADHC
Senate members at a budget subcommittee hearing on Friday raised the notion of involving the Department of Finance in tracking the costs involved in eliminating adult day health care as a Medi-Cal benefit.
The state is scheduled to end the ADHC benefit on Dec. 1.
The deadline was extended by the Department of Health Care Services from its original elimination date of Sept. 1. The extra three months are designed to give the department time to move roughly 36,000 ADHC patients to alternative services, and to conduct health assessments of those patients to determine exactly what those services will be.
Committees Move Host of Bills, Including Rate Regulation
The Senate and Assembly appropriations committees moved fast and furiously yesterday, sending a range of health-related bills out of committee and onto the legislative floor.
That includes the most controversial item on either docket, AB 52 by Assembly members Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), which would authorize the state to regulate health insurance rates.
In other news, the state controller yesterday reiterated his strong request to the Department of Health Care Services to back off from expanding a relationship with a provider of ADHC-like services, because he says that provider owes the state $339 million. Details are further below.
DHCS Director Confirmed by Rules Committee
Yesterday’s confirmation hearing to make Toby Douglas the director of the Department of Health Care Services — a job he currently holds by appointment — may have summed up the job itself.
On one level, it was a bright moment for Douglas, with people from all areas of the health care world applauding him for his strong leadership, accessibility, cooperation and depth of knowledge. And at the same time, Douglas was grilled at length over his department’s transition plan for the roughly 35,000 beneficiaries of the adult day health care program.
Douglas was unanimously confirmed by the Senate Rules Committee on a 5-0 vote.
Committee Chair Asks for Four-Month Delay of ADHC Elimination
Assembly member Mariko Yamada (D-Davis) called yesterday for a temporary delay of the scheduled Dec. 1 elimination date for adult day services as a Medi-Cal benefit. She wants that date to be extended to Mar. 31.
Yamada, chair of the Assembly Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, said the state’s transition plan moves too quickly for the large scope of the changes it’s undertaking involving a vulnerable population. She and other legislators have serious concerns about the rapid time frame, and a number of them have signed the request for delay, according to Yamada.
The state Department of Health Care Services is trying to shift services for 36,000 elderly and disabled ADHC patients by Dec. 1. That includes an effort to move most of those recipients into managed care programs by Oct. 1, so those managed care plans can conduct assessments on many of those patients and make sure their services are in place before the Dec. 1 benefit cut-off date.
Sacramento Event, Physician Highlight CCS Program
Assembly member Richard Pan (D-Natomas), a primary care physician, has been advocating pretty strongly for specialists and for the state’s children who benefit from their care.
Last week, physicians and patients gathered at a clinic in Sacramento to promote Pan’s AB 301, which would extend the deadline for funding the California Children’s Services program (CCS) by about four years.
The CCS program ensures access to specialists for about 185,000 children with severe and chronic health conditions in California.
Letter Out, Senate ADHC Hearing Set for Thursday
The Department of Health Care Services has sent 26,000 notification letters to adult day health care program participants in California, notifying them that ADHC no longer will be a Medi-Cal benefit as of Dec. 1.
Beneficiaries have until Oct. 1 to choose a managed care plan or opt to remain in a fee-for-service day center. Those who choose a managed care plan, according to DHCS, will be assessed and then receive services similar to what they get in ADHC centers.
Those who don’t make a choice by Oct. 1 will be automatically enrolled in a managed care plan, according to DHCS officials.
Budget Trailer Bills Might Rescue Healthy Families Program
When faced with running a large children’s program on about $390 million less than you had before, how many beneficiaries will you be forced to drop?
That’s the question facing the Healthy Families program, which is considering a substantial disenrollment of the 870,000 children currently in the program.
The answer, according to Senate member Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), lies in two bills — ABX1 21 and SBX1 9, budget trailer bills left over from the previous session.
Massive ‘Disenrollment’ of Children Considered
The mood at the start of yesterday’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board meeting was somber.
The chair of MRMIB, Cliff Allenby, said a letter had recently arrived from the Department of Finance, saying that $130 million in state general fund money would need to be cut from the Healthy Families program, which is administered by MRMIB.
Since the federal government matches state money 2 to 1, that means a grand total of $390 million was suddenly gone from Healthy Families, a low-cost insurance program that covers about 870,000 children in California.
Legislators, Advocates, State Officials Attend ADHC Hearing
A legislative hearing yesterday took on the task of unraveling the legal, administrative and medical tangles generated by the elimination of adult day health care as a Medi-Cal benefit in California.
The likely closure of up to 300 ADHC centers across the state on Dec. 1 — and what will happen to the medically fragile population of roughly 35,000 seniors and the disabled in California who use those centers — has produced a swell of deep worry and frustration in the ADHC community and in Sacramento.
Advocates have charged the Department of Health Care Services with ignoring the needs of the ADHC population and shunning the advice and input of center directors and experts associated with that program.