The Assembly Health Committee met today at the Capitol.
The committee considered a short list of bills, including AB1526 (Monning) which would improve MRMIP, the state’s high risk pool. The bill would align MRMIP with PCIP, the federally funded high risk pool that was created out of the Affordable Care Act. Among the improvements are the elimination of annual limits on coverage and the elimination of the requirement to present a denial letter in order to qualify for the program. This bill gained bipartisan support.
AB1580 (Bonilla) makes technical changes and improvements to last year’s AB1296, which streamlines eligibility and enrollment systems. The bill passed out of committee on party lines.
AB1869 (Perez) the Speaker’s bill will require that as the Office of the Patient Advocate expands its responsibilities and becomes a true “one stop shop” for health reform, it also includes in its responsibilities, the responsibility to help connect people with veterans’ services. This bill passed on party lines.
AB1761 (Perez) protects consumers from deceptive marketing practices by prohibiting other entities from misrepresenting themselves as the Exchange. This bill also passed along party lines.
These bills will move on to Appropriations committee next.
The Committee also passed two resolutions, AJR30 (Pan), asking the federal government to include dental care as a benefit of Medicare and SCR47 (DeSaulnier), which encourages government entities to consider health as a key factor in all policy making.