Health Care Ballot Measures Looked Familiar This Year

As they have in recent years, California voters approved selling bonds for children's hospitals and rejected the idea that minors must notify a parent before an abortion.

Four years ago, Californians approved a $750 million bond measure for children’s hospitals, and this week voters signed on for another $980 million to fund renovation, expansion, or purchase of new furnishings and equipment at California's eight not-for-profit children's hospitals.

The measure, Proposition 3, passed with 55% of the vote.  It will dole out bond funds to hospitals over a 30-year period with 20% designated for University of California facilities.

For the third time in three years, California voters decided not to require physicians to notify a parent before performing an abortion on an unemancipated minor. Proposition 4 was rejected by 52% of voters.

Similar statewide measures were defeated in 2005 and 2006. Opponents argued pregnant girls would face greater health risks if the measure passed. Supporters of the parental notification measure have pledged to try again.

Here's a summary on California legislation dealing with long-term care from the most-recent legislative session.

Long-Term Care

Approved

SB 1268 by Sen. Jeff Denham (R-Atwater) will allow the State Department of Public Health to waive the licensing examination requirement for skilled nursing facility administrators whose religions prohibit formal education.  Such administrators would have to participate in a training program and would be permitted to oversee only facilities affiliated with their church (Bill Text, 8/15).

Vetoed

Sen. Sheila Kuehl's (D-Santa Monica) SB 535 would have made changes to the information about long-term care facilities that the state Department of Health Care Services is required to make publicly available (Bill Text, 8/22).

AB 317 by Assembly member Patty Berg (D-Eureka) would have required DHCS to reimburse adult day health care centers for partial-day stays by Medi-Cal beneficiaries during a state of emergency (Bill Text, 8/29).

Signed into law: SB 1379(Ducheny)
Physician and surgeon loan repayment
Summary: Provides up to $1,000,000 annually to a physician loan repayment program obtained from fines levied against health plans. Previously health plan fines simply reduced the amount that plans are required to pay for state oversight. This bill instead uses the first $1,000,000 of those fines to fund the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps
(SMTPC) Loan Repayment Program, which provides for the repayment of educational loans obtained by a physician and surgeon who practices in a medically underserved area of the state. Any funds in excess of $1 million will be transferred to the State’s Major Risk Medical Insurance Fund. Osteopathic physicians were originally ineligible for the loan repayment program because it was funded by MDs and managed by the California Medical Board. Although OPSC was successful in adding osteopathic physicians to this legislation for inclusion in the loan repayment program, political maneuverings forced that amendment to be removed. Instead, OPSC has secured agreement from the author to introduce legislation in 2009 to allow DOs access to, and funding from, the SMTPC Loan Repayment Program.

Signed into law: AB 2439(De La Torre) Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program fees.
Summary: Changes the MD contribution to the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program from a voluntary $50 fee to a mandatory $25 fee.

Signed into law:SB 1406(Correa) Optometry.
Summary: Allows an optometrist who is certified to use therapeutic pharmaceutical agents to, among others, treat glaucoma.

Signed into law: AB 55 (Laird) Referral fees: information technology and training services.
Summary: Eliminates previous barriers to electronic health record (EHR) donation programs under California law, now allowing hospitals and physicians to participate.

Signed into law: AB 1324(De La Torre) Health care coverage: treatment authorization.
Summary: Prohibits a health care service plan or a health insurer from rescinding or modifying treatment authorization for any reason, including subsequent policy cancellation.

Vetoed by Governor: AB 1155(Huffman) Health care service plans.
Summary: Would have required health care service plans to pay a provider the amount owed plus interest, upon a determination that the plan has underpaid or failed to pay a provider.

Vetoed by Governor: AB 1945(De La Torre) Individual health care coverage.
Summary: Would have required a health care service plan or insurer to obtain final approval from its regulator prior to rescinding a policy.

Vetoed by Governor: AB 2440(Laird) Medi-Cal: reimbursement codes.
Summary: Would have required the California Department of Health Care Services to annually adopt and publish specified disease codes adopted by the federal centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by a specified date in the year in which the codes are published.

Vetoed by Governor: SB 775(Ridley-Thomas) Childhood lead poisoning. Summary: Would have required providers primarily responsible for providing prenatal care to explain to pregnant women that lead poisoning prevention information is available on the California Department of Public Health Web site or provide other information about lead poisoning prevention.

Vetoed by Governor: SB 1394(Lowenthal) Lapses of consciousness: reports to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Summary: Would have exempted a physician from civil and criminal liability for reporting a patient lapse of consciousness to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Vetoed by Governor: SB 1440(Kuehl) Health care coverage: benefits.
Summary: Would have required full service health care service plans and health insurers to expend a minimum of 85% of patient premiums on health care benefits.

Failed passage:
AB 1268(Dymally) Medi-Cal: fiscal intermediary services.
Summary: Would have required each Medi-Cal fiscal intermediary contractor to allow every qualified provider to utilize electronic means for transmitting claims.

Failed passage: AB 1436(Hernandez) Nurse practitioners.
Summary: Would have made a nurse practitioner independently responsible for performing comprehensive health care services for which he or she is educationally prepared and competent to perform, including admitting and discharging patients from health facilities, changing a treatment regimen, or initiating an emergency procedure, in collaboration with specified healing arts practitioners.

Failed passage: AB 2375(Hernandez) Health professions workforce: master plan.
Summary: Would have established a task force to assist in the development of a health professions workforce master plan for the state.

Failed passage: AB 2398(Nakanishi) Practice of medicine: cosmetic surgery: employment of physicians and surgeons.
Summary: Would have authorized the revocation of the license of a physician who practices medicine with, or serves or is employed as the medical director of, a business organization that provides outpatient elective cosmetic medical procedures or treatments, knowing that it is owned or operated in violation of the prohibition against employment of licensed physicians.

Failed passage: AB 2734(Krekorian) Health care practitioners: business cards and advertisements.
Summary: Would have required an advertisement or business card disseminated by a licensed physician, dentist, or chiropractor to include his or her name, the applicable state licensing agency, and a valid license number.

Failed passage: AB 2847 (Krekorian) Health care coverage.
Summary: Would have required a health plan or insurer to disprove medical necessity in a decision to deny, modify, or delay health care services, where the treating provider has determined the services were medically necessary.

Failed passage:AB 2910(Huffman) Health care service plans.
Summary: Would have required the California Department of Managed Health Care to hold public discussions prior to waiving the requirement of a health plan to provide basic health care services.

Failed passage:AB 2967(Lieber) Health care cost and quality transparency. Summary: Would have developed a health care cost and quality transparency plan, including strategies to improve medical data collection and reporting practices.

Failed passage: SB 1427(Calderon) Psychologists: scope of practice: prescribing drugs.
Summary: Would have authorized psychologists to prescribe drugs for specified conditions.