Latest California Healthline Stories
Insurance Czar May Gain New Clout in California
With the state’s pending implementation of national health care reform, the role of state insurance commissioner is in position to assume new political power in California.
Bill Aims to Limit Rate Hikes to One a Year
Beth Capell could barely contain her disbelief at the idea — that health plans and insurers suddenly might offer to lower their rates. And that they’d do that twice in one year.
“Not once in a blue moon,” she said.
Capell, policy advocate for Health Access California, was speaking at Wednesday’s Senate Health Committee hearing, presenting her side of what seemed like a relatively straightforward bill. AB 2042 (Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles) seeks to prevent health plans and insurers from raising rates more than once a year.
Proposal Gives Stronger Status to Mental Health Claims
The Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday passed SB 1169 (Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach), which aims to raise the status of mental health claims.
“There are two problems in how mental health conditions are handled,” bill author Lowenthal said. “Plans and insurers require daily prior authorizations, but they don’t do that with physical conditions. And the second thing is that they often delay payments and authorization.”
Lowenthal said he hopes to even the mental health playing field, by requiring a tracking number to be assigned to every mental health claim, and by pushing health insurers to give mental health treatment the same urgency shown to physical treatment authorizations.
Assembly OKs High Risk-Pool to Protect ‘Uninsurable’
The state Assembly passed AB 1887 (Mike Villines, R-Clovis) that establishes a temporary high-risk health insurance pool program in California.
It’s designed to cover patients with a pre-existing condition who have been rejected for coverage by a private health plan. It would insure high-risk patients here for the next four years, until the federal government sets up a permanent health care exchange in 2014.
The legislation complies with new federal health care reform law, and allows the state to tap into $761 million a year in federal funds. High-risk coverage is expected to reach about 30,000 people in California.
The Slippery Territory of Autism
A treatment for autism called applied behavioral analysis is basically helping those with autism develop new behavior with a system of rewards and consequences.
It’s generally known as one of the most successful forms of therapy available for autistic children. So if it has some success, why isn’t it always covered by private insurance?
That was the central question at a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Autism and Related Disorders.
Farewell To theWeekly, Hello Daily Capitol Desk
California Healthline’s Friday feature, theWeekly, has evolved to become Capitol Desk.
Where theWeekly provided a rundown of the week’s legislative news and an update on individual, health-related bills making their way through the political process, this page aims to provide a daily report from Sacramento. Since things change so quickly in the halls of power, I will be posting items here in a notebook format, everything from the news of the day to examinations of health policy issues that fall below the radar of most other media.
There is already plenty of health policy news to follow, but there will soon be even more as California begins to implement federal health reform. I hope to give a strong sense of what’s going on in the daily world of political wrangling over key issues while adding context and explanation to help make sense of it all.
Telemedicine Struggles in Central Valley Amid Hope, Hardship
Despite investments in infrastructure, widespread use of telemedicine has yet to take hold in San Joaquin Valley, an area of California that could benefit greatly from the technology. The Valley’s experience could hold lessons for the rest of the state.
If You’re a Californian Who Likes Health Care Reform Raise Your Hand
Interesting panel discussion today in Sacramento that accompanied the release of the latest Field Poll gauging the attitudes of Californians toward health care reform. There were some surprising results in the poll, and some intriguing takes on what those numbers mean.
Kim Belshé, Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, put it this way: “How can so many people (in California) feel optimistic about the promise of health care reform, and at the same time so many think health care reform won’t really help them personally?”
But first, as they say, let’s do the numbers:
New Payment Method May Help Curb Costs, Improve Care
Payment bundling, an important part of national health care reform, is likely to be an integral part of California’s effort to revamp its health care system. The new tool has the potential to deliver lower costs, more efficient reimbursement and better patient outcomes.
High-Risk Pools May Need Lower Expectations
With days to go before uninsured residents can begin applying to new high-risk insurance pools, issues ahead of the program’s launch have emerged as a microcosm of the past year’s health debate.