Major Legislative Issues - 2011-2012

Updated – 3/22/12

Instructions for accessing website:

Click on California Legislative Counsel’s Legislative Information Page. Once you’re there:

Select either "Assembly" or "Senate" in the "HOUSE" box;
Type the number of the bill in the "BILL NUMBER" box; and
Hit the "SEARCH" button.

Once you’re there, you can read the most recent version in either browser (HTML) or Adobe Acrobat Reader (*.pdf) format. You may also check the measure’s status and history. To learn more about the author, click on the surname after the bill number. You’ll be taken to the member’s official legislative web site, where the choices are self-explanatory.

CDA Sponsored Legislation	Status	Staff
AB 1579 (Campos) Dental Coverage: Non-Contracting Providers: Assignment of Benefits Amends the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act. . Requires a health care service plan/insurer to pay a noncontracting dental provider directly for covered services where the provider submits a written assignment of benefits signed by the patient. Specifies that the plan’s payment shall not exceed the amount of the benefit covered by the plan’s contract, and requires a non-contracting dentist accepting assignment of benefits to disclose to the patient that he/she is a non-contracting provider.	Assembly Health	Allison Barnett
AB 2252 (Gordon) Dental Coverage: Provider Notice of Changes Requires a plan or insurer providing dental coverage to also provide notice to contract dentists of any changes to the plan's rules, regulations, guidelines, policies or procedures concerning dental provider contracting or coverage of or payment for dental services. Gives the dentist the right to negotiate, agree to the change and to terminate its contract if an agreement cannot be reached.	Assembly Health	Allison Barnett
CDA Support Legislation
AB 1738 (Huffman) Health Care Coverage: Tobacco Cessation Requires health care service plan contracts and health insurance policies to provide coverage for 2 courses of treatment in a 12-month period for tobacco cessation preventive services, and prohibits plans and insurers from charging a copayment, coinsurance, or deductible for those services. Prohibits a plan or insurer from requiring enrollees or insureds to enter counseling in order to receive tobacco cessation medications.	Assembly Health	Allison Barnett
AB 1742 (Pan) Health Care Coverage: Payment for Benefits Requires a group or individual health care service plan to permit assignment of an enrollee's or subscriber's right to reimbursement for covered services to the provider. . Provides for the direct payment of individual insurance medical benefits by a health insurer to the person who provided the hospitalization or medical or surgical aid where that person has submitted information to the insurer for reimbursement. Limits the amount of the reimbursement to policy limits.	Assembly Health	Allison Barnett
AB 1746 (Williams) Schools: Nutrition: Beverages Recasts provisions related to the sale of only certain beverages to pupils at schools and would restrict the sale of electrolyte replacement beverages in middle schools and high schools to specified times before and after school. Support with amendments to include oral health component	Assembly Education	Allison Barnett
CDA Support-in-Principle Legislation
AB 217 ( Carter) Smoking Prohibition: Long-term Care Facility Amends existing law that prohibits an employer from knowingly or intentionally permitting, and a person from engaging in, the smoking of tobacco products in an enclosed space at a place of employment. Provides that a patient smoking area is not a place of employment, only if the area is not located in a patient's room, is located outdoors that can be monitored by facility staff, and is located in an area that reasonably prevents smoke from entering the facility or patient's rooms.	Senate Health	Allison Barnett
SB 575 (DeSaulnier) Smoking in Workforce Expands the prohibition on smoking in a place of employment to include an owner-operated business. Eliminates most of the specified exemptions that permit smoking in certain work environments, such as hotel lobbies, bars and taverns, banquet rooms, warehouse facilities, private residences used as family day care homes, and employee break rooms.	Pending	Allison Barnett
SB 975 (Wright) Professions and Vocations: Regulatory Authority Provides that boards, bureaus, and commissions within the Department of Consumer Affairs have the sole and exclusive authority in state government to license and regulate the practice of professions and vocations regulated by those boards pursuant to provisions of the Business and Professions Code, and that no licensing requirements shall be imposed upon a person licensed to practice one of those professions or vocations other than under that code or by regulation promulgated by the applicable board.	Pending	Bill Lewis
GAC Legislation
SB 694 (Padilla) Dental Care Requires the creation of a statewide Office of Oral Health within the Department of Public Health, under the direction of a state dental director who would be a licensed dentist. Specifies the role of the office, and specifies that no state General Fund moneys would be used, requiring the use of other public or private funds as determined by the Director of Finance. Authorizes the office to design and implement a scientifically rigorous university-based study to assess the safety, quality, cost-effectiveness and patient satisfaction of expanded dental procedures involving multiple dental providers in public health settings.Specifies that funds for the study must come from public or private sources other than the state General Fund.	Pending in Assembly	Allison Barnett
Opposed Legislation
SB 1528 ( Steinberg) Damages: Medical Services Specifies in the Civil Code that an injured person shall be entitled to recover the reasonable value of medical services received without regard to the amount actually paid.	Pending	Allison Barnett
Healthy Families Program Shift
The Governor’s proposed 2012-2013 budget includes a proposal to transition the 875,000 children in the Healthy Families Program (HFP) to Medi-Cal, eliminating HFP program entirely in 2013. The transition proposal, similar to last year’s budget proposal, may allow for the expansion of dental managed care in Medi-Cal to the 34 counties in which it currently does not exist. The proposal is much more developed this year in outlining a transition plan, timeline, call for plan performance standards, and stakeholder process. This is all still very early in the process and DHCS has acknowledged they will need to work with all stakeholders; however, there is a clearer focus this year on trying to make managed care work (for medical and dental). CDA is opposed to statewide expansion of dental managed care in the Medi-Cal program, as long as the fundamental problems identified with that delivery model, particularly in the Sacramento Geographic Managed Care program, have not been adequately addressed.
Sacramento GMC
Senator Steinberg (Sacramento) has proposed budget trailer bill language to respond to recent media focus on the problems with the Sacramento GMC dental program. He has announced his proposed placeholder language and his intent to hold discussions with stakeholders and the Administration over the next two months to further craft this language, which is intended to be included in the Omnibus Health Trailer Legislation for the enactment of the Budget for 2012-13. Discussions are being held on the Sacramento Dental GMC issues and Senator Steinberg’s proposal, as well as other Medi-Cal Program issues in the Governor’s proposed budget, including the Healthy Families Program transition. Key aspects of the proposed bill language are as follows: Makes Sacramento “voluntary” in lieu of “mandatory” enrollment. Provides for Fee-For-Service, including FQHC, and dental health managed care programs to operate. Places performance measures on dental health plans. Requires the State Department of Health Care Services to do more monitoring and data analysis and ties this to the contracting process. This language does not expand dental health managed care to other areas of California since this is a separate issue which is before the Budget Committees as it pertains to the transfer of the Healthy Families Program.
Health Care Reform/Exchange