Latest California Healthline Stories
What Texas Can Teach California About Health Care Reform
Texas’ hands-off approach to its health care safety net can offer takeaways for California, either as a hard lesson for the cash-strapped Golden State — or as an example of what not to do.
Legislature Passes Healthy Families Money, Mulls DMHC Move
Among the raft of bills that floated through the Legislature in the final days of session were two big health-related ones:
• The Assembly, after trying and failing by one vote to pass ABX1 21 by Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills), yesterday took up the measure again and this time passed it, 61-9; and
• An Assembly bill, AB 922 by Bill Monning (D-Carmel), is designed to expand and move the Office of the Patient Advocate. It took on an amendment that also moves its parent agency, the Department of Managed Health Care. Those agencies currently reside under the Department of Business, Transportation and Housing.
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.
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.
Did the Democrats Miss Chance To Protect Reform Law?
The 11th Circuit Court’s decision to strike down the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate raises questions for the law’s future, but also its past. Could the White House have better constructed its sweeping health law to avoid constitutional challenges?
Rate Regulation, Basic Health Headed to Floor?
The state Legislature reconvenes today, starting with a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing with 167 items on the agenda. The Assembly’s Appropriations Committee meets Wednesday, with 184 items to consider.
Those numbers will be whittled down for this week’s hearings, but generally Appropriations is the final destination before an actual floor vote for any bill that might spend money. That’s why the two committees will have so many menu items from which to choose.
Among the bills that still need to clear the Appropriations hurdle is AB 52 — by Assembly members Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) — which is the health insurance rate regulation bill. Also up is the bill to create a Basic Health Program, SB 703, by Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina).
Should State Consolidate Health Plan Regulation? How, When?
California is the only state with two bureaucracies keeping tabs on health insurers. Should California consolidate health care regulation in one agency? If so, how and when? We asked experts and stakeholders to weigh in.
How Should the Exchange Adjust Risk?
William Dow, a professor of health economics at UC-Berkeley, said the idea is relatively simple.
“In theory, each individual patient comes with a dollar amount representing their gain or loss to the insurance company,” Dow said at a recent forum in Sacramento. “And that means every enrollee should have the same profit amount.”
If higher risk patients, such as those with diabetes, pay a slightly higher premium, Dow said, that balances the risk that companies take in insuring them.
Cost Drops for Patients with Pre-Existing Conditions
Enrollment for the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) just got a big boost.
Cost has long been suspected as one of the limiting factors to signing up people to the federally funded PCIP program. Now, according to officials of the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB), the cost of premiums in the plan are about to drop by an average of 18%.
“We have new premiums now with a significant reduction in cost,” MRMIB chair Cliff Allenby said, “at an average of 18%, which is anywhere from 8.2% to 24.3% lower cost.”
Children’s Programs Slowly Moving Forward at MRMIB
Reports of the demise of the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board were a little premature. There it was, alive and well at its monthly meeting last week, discussing expansion of existing programs and establishment of new ones.
MRMIB runs four programs: Healthy Families, Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM), the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) and the Major Risk Medical Insurance Program (MRMIP).
The agency was slated for elimination under the governor’s May budget revision. The current plan still is to phase out MRMIB’s activities by 2014, when much of its mission will be taken over by the new federal health care reform law. But when the Gov. Jerry Brown (D) announced in May that he wanted to move 900,000 children from the Healthy Families program to a Medi-Cal managed care plan, Brown also proposed the quick elimination of MRMIB, since Healthy Families is such a large part of what MRMIB does.