Latest California Healthline Stories
Watch Sears and Darden, Not Obama vs. Romney, for Future of Health Care
Sears Holdings and Darden Restaurants are adopting a new direct contribution model for their employees’ health benefits, a change that may prompt other major companies to follow suit.
Governor Nixes Long List of Health Bills
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a number of health care bills over the weekend. They ranged from a program designed to improve flu vaccinations among health care workers, to a proposal to define and promote patient-centered medical homes, to a regulation on hospital-nurse staffing ratios.
The governor had a variety of reasons he gave for the different vetoes, but at least one of those explanations didn’t make much sense, according Assembly member Henry Perea (D-Fresno). Perea is the author of AB 1000, a measure designed to make oral chemotherapy more affordable and accessible for Californians.
“While I support the author’s efforts to make oral chemotherapy treatments more affordable for the insured, this bill doesn’t distinguish between health plans and insurers who make these drugs available at a reasonable cost and those who do not,” Brown wrote in his veto message.
Millions Will Fall Through ACA Cracks in California, Report Predicts
A new joint report from UC-Berkeley Labor Center and UCLA Center for Health Policy Research predicts that as many as four million Californians still will be without health insurance after national health reforms are in place.
New Attention on End-of-Life Care
Partnership HealthPlan of California, a health insurer covering roughly 200,000 Medi-Cal beneficiaries in six Northern California counties, has decided to offer the optional benefit of palliative care to its members.
“It’s part of health care, and part of life,” said Richard Fleming, the regional medical director for PHP. “That’s why we’re arranging for greater availability of palliative care. It’s an enhanced benefit, for people before they’re in hospice.”
People in palliative care are severely ill, but don’t fall specifically into the definition of being within six months of dying. “They need a lot more medication management, and there are social issues they need help with,” Fleming said.
Uninsured Number Dips — But Why?
Census results released Wednesday show a drop in the number of people without health insurance nationally, from 16.3% of Americans in 2010 down to 15.7% in 2011, about 1.4 million fewer uninsured across the country.
Given the weak economy, that was a welcome development to Kiwon Yoo, policy director of the Insure the Uninsured Project, based in Santa Monica.
“The biggest reason for that is the dependent coverage that kicked in,” Yoo said. “The numbers declined by about 2.2% in that age group, and that’s 3 million people nationally. That’s a big chunk of it.”
New Attempt at Rate Regulation on Ballot
Let the battle begin, again.
One of the most contentious health-related bills before the Legislature in the past two years was a proposal to regulate health insurance rates, AB 52 by Assembly member Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles). After it failed to clear the Legislature in September last year, a consumer rights organization decided to take the baton and make it a state initiative.
Almost a full year later, Consumer Watchdog has officially collected 549,380 signatures and the secretary of state on Thursday verified the measure will be on the November, 2014 ballot. Voters now will decide the rate regulation question.
It also means the rhetoric is likely to get more heated than it did in Sacramento at the height of the rate regulation debate.
Senate OKs Oral Chemotherapy Mandate
Health insurers will need to cover oral chemotherapy medication if a bill passed Monday by the Senate is signed by the governor.
Today, the Assembly is expected to concur on AB 1000 by Henry Perea (D-Fresno), a decision that would send the bill to the governor’s desk for a signature.
The mandate on oral chemotherapy coverage would not necessarily apply to coverage within the Health benefits for the exchange, but said he has not yet had conversations with the Benefit Exchange. Bill author Perea said he’s talking with legislators about the possibility of including oral chemotherapy medication among the essential health exchange staff.
Will Basic Health Program Hurt, Help Exchange?
An analysis of a proposed Basic Health Program and its impact on the Health Benefit Exchange offers a mixed bag of pros and cons for exchange leaders and legislators.
The nascent Basic Health Program, if passed by the Legislature, would target a large percentage of possible exchange participants. So the question lawmakers have been wrestling with is: Would that be a good or a bad thing for the exchange, and for Californians?
That’s the question tackled by the exchange itself. On Monday, it released an independent analysis by the UC-Berkeley Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, which was commissioned by the exchange board.
Standards Open Exchange Doors for Qualified Health Plans
Insurers, often overlooked in the discussion about who benefits from health care reform, came one step closer to participation and potential profit when the California Health Benefit Exchange released its 263-page definition of a qualified health plan.
California’s LIHP a Big Success
The Low Income Health Program, launched 20 months ago, already has more than 400,000 Californians signed up. Health care experts gathered in Sacramento yesterday to discuss one of the successes in California’s health reform effort.
“We hear about a lot of issues people have, but the issue that rises to the top is the LIHP,” said Agnes Lee, health policy advisor to the Assembly speaker’s office.
“Among the doom and gloom of the state budget, there is a bright spot out there. LIHP is one of those rare examples of an innovative, forward-thinking program … and this is something the nation is definitely looking at, as something significant,” Lee said at yesterday’s conference, “Low Income Health Program: Evolution,” sponsored by the Blue Shield of California Foundation.