Latest California Healthline Stories
Healthy San Francisco’s Lessons for National Health Reform
It has an employer mandate. It has improved access to care. It has survived a Supreme Court challenge. So, why aren’t national health policy leaders paying more attention to Healthy San Francisco?
Health Insurance Rate Regulation May Be On November Ballot
The contentious issue of regulating California’s health care insurance industry is back.
After AB 52 by Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) was shelved at the end of the last legislative session, that looked like the final word on the prospect of regulating health insurance rates.
Yesterday, Consumer Watchdog filed paperwork to take health insurance rate regulation to the voters.
Five Key Lines in the Circuit Court Rulings on Reform
Questions about the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality took center stage again this week, as a fourth appeals court rendered its decision and the Supreme Court prepares to conference on whether to take the case.
New Cost Tool Aims To Boost Pay-for-Performance Model of Care
In an effort to measure value in health care transactions, the Integrated Healthcare Association is introducing a “Total Cost of Care” metric to be used in its pay-for-performance program. IHA hopes the new tool will speed up improvements in clinical quality by providing financial incentives to physicians.
Follow the Money: How Industry Is Lobbying To Preserve Reform Law
New reports on health sector lobbying reveal that the industry continues to donate generously to President Obama and Democrats, despite public criticism of last year’s health reform law.
Extra Year of Operation for PCIP?
A big topic at yesterday’s meeting of the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB) was the agency’s interaction with the state’s Health Benefit Exchange.
Programs MRMIB administers will eventually disappear, absorbed by the introduction of health care reform and the Exchange in 2014. That is fine with the board members at MRMIB, but they gently raised the idea yesterday that programs such as the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan might be continued for a year.
“This population will migrate to the Exchange, and that’s what we want,” board member Richard Figueroa said. “But also, we do have some things to offer, in terms of what we’ve learned about running a transparent process, the single rules engine, and how to get people into these programs and keep them there.”
Ruling Raises Questions for Mental Health Coverage
An appellate court ruling in favor of a Blue Shield of California policyholder with anorexia could change how health insurers cover mental illness. However, health plans and advocates are divided on the ruling’s effects.
A consumer advocacy group took on the chair of the Senate Health Committee at the end of last week, and it has stirred up Sacramento.
The ad was in reaction to the legislative decision to delay a vote on AB 52 by Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), the proposal to regulate health insurance rate increases.
According to Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog, Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) was responsible for a lot of the resistance to that measure. Watchdog ran a television advertisement that attacked Hernandez for financial ties to Kaiser Permanente and for how he treated one member of the public at a hearing.
California Lands HHS Rate Review Grants, but No Bonuses
Because California lacks the authority to reject health insurance premiums considered unreasonable, two federal grants the state received this week were smaller than they might have been. HHS handed out $109 million in grants to help states strengthen oversight of health insurance premiums.
L.A. Care Health Plan’s Elaine Batchlor Talks About Efforts To Improve Safety-Net Care
Elaine Batchlor, chief medical officer at L.A. Care Health Plan, spoke with California Healthline about the challenges facing safety-net health programs and the opportunities to address such challenges through innovation.