Latest California Healthline Stories
Amendments Could Move Basic Health Program to Floor Vote
Today a bill to create a state Basic Health Program comes before the Assembly Committee on Appropriations, with the intention of getting sprung out of committee and to the legislative floor for a vote.
SB 703 by Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) is currently “on suspense” — a kind of legislative limbo for bills with significant potential fiscal impact on California. All bills with a financial impact of $150,000 a year or more have to be put on the suspense file. The appropriations committee can then evaluate all of those bigger-ticket items collectively, so that the committee can better regulate how much spending it approves.
Hernandez has been proposing amendments that would lessen the potential financial impact of SB 703, and today the committee will decide whether or not to remove the bill from suspense.
What Paul Ryan’s Reforms Would Mean for California
Mitt Romney’s running mate has authored several budget proposals that would transform Medicare and Medicaid. How would Ryan’s changes affect the Golden State, and how do they compare to the Affordable Care Act’s reforms?
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.
Ombudsman, Immunization Bills Up for Floor Vote
Dozens of health-related bills passed through committee last week, setting up pending floor votes starting this week.
The last hurdle for many bills is the appropriations committee of each house. Those committees ran at high speed last week, churning out approvals for hundreds of bills.
The Legislature has until the end of August to vote on all bills.
Some of the health-related bills that cleared committee last week:
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.
Mass. Panic: Did State Wait Too Long To Try Cost Control?
Experts are cautiously optimistic that a new Massachusetts law will be a much-anticipated cure for the state’s rising health spending. But others say that the state’s new cost controls — which could be a model for the nation — aren’t the right prescription for reform.
Exchange Maps Out Plan for Next Year
The state Health Benefit Exchange board finalized and submitted its request to federal officials for a $196 million Level 1.2 establishment grant — essentially mapping out the exchange’s plans over the next year.
Exchange executive director Peter Lee made the announcement at the board’s July 19 meeting in Oakland.
“We have submitted our establishment funding grant, what we call our Level 1.2 grant, to ensure our continued building of our state-based exchange,” Lee said. “The funding request itself is a demonstration of the partnership that is so vital to the success of the exchange.”
Safety-Net Hospitals Face Funding Cuts on Two Federal Fronts
Safety-net hospitals are facing a double-whammy of funding cuts: The Affordable Care Act lowers Medicaid payments to hospitals for uncompensated care and changes in Medicare reimbursements could mean further reductions in payments to safety-net hospitals.
First We Need To Agree on the Problem, New Jersey Doc Says
Jeff Brenner, a physician in Camden, New Jersey, is deeply frustrated by the health care system in America.
“The bulk of federal debt is health care,” Brenner said. “It’s 18% of the economy, and we’re exploding on a sea of debt. And it’s the system itself. It’s the system and the rules we’ve made. The system is headed for crisis and the question is, how fast will it get there.”
“The problem is, we don’t have a common agreement about what’s causing the problem, so we can’t bend the cost curve if we don’t agree on the problem,” said Brenner, founder and executive director of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers.