Senate Health Committee Report

Our colleague Sawait Hezchias-Seyoum reports from the Senate Health Committee today:

The Senate Health Commitee, chaired by Senator Dr. Ed Hernandez, took up three bills of interest to health advocates that Health Access is supporting: SB 1002 (De Leon) on Medi-Cal Redetermination, SB 959 (Hernandez) on Health Care Coverage, and SB 1089 (Mitchell) on Medi-Cal: Juvenile Inmates.

SB 1002 (De Leon) would allow a county to align household’s Medi-Cal redetermination date with the household’s CalFresh certification date, in an effort to streamline benefit delivery and improve low-income Californian’s access to federally funded health and nutrition benefits.  Every member of the committee voted in support of this bill except for Senator Nielson, who was not present.  Senator Anderson, a Republican legislator who served as Vice-Chair, even signed on as a co-author midway during the debate.

SB 959 (Hernandez), a clean-up bill for a half dozen major pieces of legislation that taken together constitute the market changes that implement and improve on the Affordable Care Act passed out of committee with all members voting in support except for Senator De Leon and Senator Nielsen who were not present.

SB 1089 (Mitchell), which builds on existing law to allow the State, on behalf of counties and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, to draw down Federal Medicaid funding for hospital inpatient and inpatient psychiatric services for Medicaid eligible detained juveniles at no cost to the State was voted out of committee on consent.