Latest California Healthline Stories
Five Things To Watch in Health Care in 2013
If 2012 was a high-wire political act, and 2014 will bring a rush of implementation, will next year be an intermission or sprint for health care? Here are five indicators to watch in the coming months.
Northern California Addresses Safety-Net Challenges
Anticipating an influx of newly insured residents in 2014 when the Affordable Care Act fully takes effect, Northern California clinics are recruiting new primary care physicians and considering how to best use mid-level providers.
Report Urges Exchanges To Help Consumers Make Right Choices
When Covered California opens for business in 2014, one of the first and most important tasks will be to get people to sign up for the right coverage — a simple but crucial step in making the health benefit exchange a success, according to a new report released this week.
Will Firms Cut Jobs — or Benefits — Under ACA? Weighing the Evidence
Questions continue to swirl about the Affordable Care Act’s effect on employment and health coverage, with critics suggesting that the law will lead to more part-time hiring and supporters arguing that the concerns are overblown.
How Will Consumers Choose Exchange Coverage?
The Pacific Business Group on Health yesterday released the third and final installment of its comprehensive report on how to ensure that the people joining a health benefit exchange end up with the plan that works best for them.
“The whole notion of the Affordable Care Act and the establishment of the exchange is to improve the overall health care marketplace,” said Ted von Glahn, a senior director at PBGH, a not-for-profit business coalition focused on health care issues.
“If you don’t get it right when people are making those choices,” von Glahn said, “that would defeat the whole purpose of it.”
No Agenda Yet for Special Session
The one-month delay in the legislative special session on health care should not affect the content of the discussion, according to Assembly member Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), who chairs the Assembly Committee on Health.
“The purpose of the special session is that there’s legislation that is really important to get passed prior to the Jan. 1, 2014 [Affordable Care Act] deadline,” Pan said. “So this will allow us to pass these bills and have them take effect prior to that time. So in [terms of the special session move from December to January], it doesn’t change anything.”
In August, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) announced he would convene a special session in the Legislature after the national election in November, to address elements of the Affordable Care Act. That special session was expected to happen sometime in December.
Republicans Changing Tune — but not Shifting Critical Tone — on Medicaid
A handful of prominent conservatives have dropped their fight against the Affordable Care Act and its Medicaid expansion, but GOP leaders say the program still needs immediate reform.
Exchange Official: Multistate Plans Not Same as Public Option
Multistate insurance plans to be offered under the Affordable Care Act aren’t substitutes for a public option and probably won’t have much influence on competition in California, according to a Covered California official.
Health Care Special Session Slated for January
California’s legislative special session on health care won’t take place until January, according to officials at the California Health and Human Services agency.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) told legislators in August he will convene a special session in the Legislature “to continue [the] important work of implementing the Affordable Care Act,” Brown wrote in a letter to California legislators. The session was expected to be convened in December.
The special session will be held concurrently with the regular legislative session that begins Jan. 7.
What Health Policy Wonks Are ‘Thankful’ for This Thanksgiving
Supporters of the Affordable Care Act are grateful that the law will survive, while some conservative health policy scholars remain glad that parts of Obamacare can still be delayed.