Latest California Healthline Stories
The Perils, Promise of Retail Clinics in California
Medical clinics in drugstores and large retail emporiums have spread slowly but surely in California, but impending changes from national health care reform could change the nascent retail clinic industry’s growth pattern. Will it get a boost, or will it slow down even further?
Think the wheels of Sacramento politics move slowly? Think again.
On Monday, when the California Legislature returns from its summer recess, the Senate Committee on Appropriations plans to conduct a session that is expected to last 12 hours — and possibly longer — when it takes up and either approves or denies 203 new laws.
If you do the math, that’s just 3 minutes and 31 seconds for each bill — to introduce, argue both sides, have questions answered and vote on each piece of legislation.
Do Hospice Facilities Need Own Rules?
There are separate requirements for all kinds of health-related places — nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, congregate living health facilities — so should there be separate definitions and requirements for hospice facilities? Since end-of-life care differs from extending-of-life care, should separate facilities be built just for hospice?
Those are some of the questions taken on last week in a Senate appropriations committee special hearing on AB 950 by Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), and the legislative answers are not simple.
“The basic question is: Is there a need for a specific hospice license category?” hearing chair Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) said.
State Makes Push for Coverage for Pregnant Women
A bill to require health insurance plans to include maternity care is on the doorstep of the Senate floor, but it will have to resolve some fiscal questions before it moves forward.
“Very simply, when women do not have maternity services as part of their heath insurance, or have maternity services that are substandard they end up going on state programs, like AIM, the Access for Infants and Mothers program, which is a subset of Medi-Cal (the state’s Medicaid program),” said bill author Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate).
“As of 2009,” he said, “about 1,400 women were enrolled with policies that did not cover maternity services, so the rest of us had to pay for it.” An even greater number had policies with high deductibles or inadequate coverage, De La Torre said, and they used state programs, as well.
Medical Professionals Make Their Mark on Reform
It was Kim Belshé, the Secretary of California Health and Human Services, who recently made an appeal for “not the politics of reform, but the policy of reform.”
What she meant is that working on the implementation of health care reform in California should be a grassroots affair — that politicians shouldn’t lead reform, but rather, health professionals should take the reins to revamp our health care system.
That’s the idea behind the town hall meeting, “Putting the Care in Obamacare,” that’s being held today (Monday) in Los Angeles, according to Leif Wellington Haase, director of the California program at New America Foundation, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group that’s putting on the conference.
Regulating Insurance Rate Hikes Could Be Costly
A funny thing happened on the way to passing a bill to regulate large health insurance rate hikes — it hit a wall of money.
The last hurdle in the state legislature for AB 2578 by Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) before getting its vote on the Senate floor was a quick stop in the Senate Committee for Appropriations. But on Thursday, the committee heard a cost analysis report presented by the Department of Managed Health Care that froze the legislation in committee — at least for now.
To implement the bill, the Department of Managed Health Care estimated the state would need to hire 110 high-priced actuaries, and an additional support staff of about 60 more people, at a cost of $23 million for the first year.
Health Insurance Limited for Same-Sex Couples
Gay couples in California may have many of the rights of heterosexual married partners — but not when it comes to dependent health insurance coverage, according to a UCLA study released in the July issue of Health Affairs.
California is a state where registered domestic partnership laws extend marriage-like rights and responsibilities, where laws regulating health insurance and health plans require equal treatment of spouses and domestic partners.
But, according to the study, lesbian and gay couples have a difficult time collecting dependent coverage benefits outside of the public sector.
Hope Hits Streets to Get New Ideas
A new organization of health care leaders wants to talk through the problems of health care, but that doesn’t mean that’s all Hope Street Group wants to do.
“We are very much geared toward action,” Monique Nadeau said.
Nadeau, executive director of the new health-policy brainstorming organization, said Hope Street Group has tackled education issues in the past. The group now turns its attention to health care.
Medical Home Model Gains Traction on North Coast
The idea of a “medical home” to make primary care work better for patients, physicians and insurers is gaining a foothold on the North Coast, but many say California as a whole is behind the curve nationally.
High-Risk Pool Gets Fast Track Treatment
California has been running its own high-risk insurance pool for the past 18 years. So the people running the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB) are extremely familiar with the pressing need for the program throughout the state.
When the federal government offered up funds to significantly expand the number of people who could have access to a high-risk insurance pool, California officials jumped at it.
“There are a lot of people in California who really need this,” MRMIB’s Deputy Director of Legislative and External Affairs Jeanie Esajian said. “And it is something MRMIB has strived to do for a long time — 18 years. This gives us the opportunity to provide services for so many more people.”