Latest California Healthline Stories
Jon Kingsdale on Lessons from Massachusetts’ Experience With a Health Insurance Exchange
Jon Kingsdale, independent consultant and former executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, spoke with California Healthline about how California could learn from Massachusetts’ health benefit exchange.
“Everyone thinks that January 2014 is years away,” California HHS Director Kim Belshé said. “But 2014 is tomorrow.”
Belshé is referring to setting up the California Health Benefit Exchange, now that the governor signed two exchange bills into law yesterday.
The exchange has to be operational three years from its inception, on Jan. 1, 2014 — but that’s the blink of an eye for a project of this scope and importance, Belshé said.
California Assumes Lead Role in National Reform
No other state has embraced health care reform with the zeal of California. It has passed a number of first-in-the-nation laws — and it stands to reap the benefit of millions of federal dollars. Other states are watching carefully.
The biggest of many decisons the governor faces this week involves creation of the California health care benefits exchange, and no one seems to know which way he’ll go on it.
One of the factors that has fueled the push toward a possible veto of the bill is a report that has many Capitol staffers hopping mad. It was written by Mike Genest, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s former director of the Department of Finance, and it was commissioned by the California Chamber of Commerce, one of the more vocal opponents of the exchange.
According to multiple sources, some of whom requested anonymity, the report promulgates several major fallacies about the power and scope of the proposed benefits exchange:
Spotting a Unicorn: ACOs Inch Closer to Reality
More health care providers are entering into arrangements to create “accountable care organizations,” but these emerging alliances face legal questions because regulators have yet to define ACOs. Potential answers, and several milestones, lie ahead for the model.
Powerful Move To Short-Circuit the Exchange
The biggest and most ground-breaking piece of the California health care reform puzzle might just stay in the box.
The health care benefits exchange that would be created if the governor signs two bills (AB 1602 and SB 900) that were approved by the Legislature would be similar to an exchange set up in Massachusetts, but would be the first of its kind in the nation established to conform to the national health care reform law.
The governor has been getting a big push from Anthem Blue Cross and the California Chamber of Commerce to veto those bills, according to government officials and health care advocates.
Decision Time in Governor’s Office
This is the week. After months of debates and votes by the state Assembly and Senate, hundreds of bills were passed and sent on to the governor for his signature.
And those bills are still waiting for a signature. In part, that’s due to the absence of a state budget. But now, the governor has just four more days to sign or veto the pile of bills in front of him. The deadline is Thursday, Sept. 30.
There are several dozen health care bills pending, including many that reinforce or help implement the national health reform law. The governor is expected to sign most of them — but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a behind-the-scenes battle raging over some of them.
HHS Secretary Sebelius Adopts Initial Enrollment Recs
On Friday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius accepted initial recommendations, developed by the Health IT Standards and Policy committees’ enrollment work group, that aim to improve the enrollment process for health and human services programs.
Health Care Reform Eyes on California
As the CEO of the Small Business Majority, an advocacy group for small businesses in California, John Arensmeyer has traveled the state recently on a “listening tour” — and he’s been heartened by what he’s heard.
“We’re certainly hearing a lot of questions about health care reform,” Arensmeyer said, “but there is universal agreement across the board as to the whole concept of setting up the [California health benefits] exchange.”
The health benefits exchange is the centerpiece of health care reform in California, he said. Since California is the first to pass legislation to create an exchange in response to the national health care reform law, the rest of the nation is paying close attention to it, he said.
A Tale of Two Campaigns: Repeal vs. Reinforce
Republican efforts to do away with health reform have coalesced around a strategy to defund the law. Meanwhile, Democrats will mount a spirited defense of the overhaul timed to its six-month anniversary and the rollout of new provisions.