Following a presentation by Executive Director Peter Lee on Covered California’s “story” of success and need to transition from start up mode to a mature operation with sustainable financing, Thursday’s Board meeting had exactly one action item: approval of the Covered California budget for fiscal year 2015-2016. Comings and Goings Director Lee announced the retirement […]
Medi-Cal Stakeholder Advisory Committee: Highlights from May 20, 2015
With the state still awaiting initial feedback from CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) on its pending “Medi-Cal 2020” waiver renewal, most of the meeting was devoted to Medi-Cal programs with significant transformation initiatives. Today’s blog covers these topics: Governor’s May Budget Revision Update on Medi-Cal and Covered California Enrollment 1115 Waiver Renewal Concept and Application […]
Senate Health Committee Hearing – Wed, April 29, 2015
Yesterday the Senate Health Committee met for the last time before the May 1st deadline for all fiscal bills. Out of the 25 bills on the committee’s agenda, a handful that were of prime interest to Health Access and health care advocates. These include: SB 203 (Monning) on sugar sweetened beverages safety warnings; SB 346 (Wieckowski) on hospital […]
Assembly Health Committee Hearing April 7: Several Key Health Consumer Bills Move Forward
Yesterday the California Assembly Committee on Health passed a bevy of bills, most with wide margins. Highlighted below are those sponsored or supported by Health Access California. AB248 Health Insurance: Minimum Value-Large Group Market Policies (Hernández), sponsored by Health Access California, prohibits the sale of subminimum coverage by insurers to large employers. Such “junk” plans […]
Will the AG Let For-Profit Prime Takeover the Daughters of Charity Health System?
Last week, Health Access joined hundreds of allies, community organizations, elected officials and labor to oppose the sale of 6 hospitals operated by the non-profit Daughters of Charity Health System to the for-profit Prime Healthcare, Inc. California law requires the Attorney General’s (AG) review and consent for any sale or transfer of a health care facility […]
New national attention on hospital debt collection practices..
About a week ago, the New York Times broke a major story on the issue of hospital billings and collections. It’s an issue we’ve done a lot of work on, leading to the passage of the Hospital Fair Pricing Act in 2006, and educating pa tients about the consumer protections in California law through our website, http://www.hospitalbillhelp.org/. […]
Already a busy Legislature on health issues…
Bill hearings don’t really get started for a few more weeks, but that doesn’t mean the legislature is not already busy, conducting information hearings on a range of topics. And that also means that there’s already a sizable stack of useful documents to read. Health Access and our allies were most interested in three in […]
Well-deserved award for uncovering Prime abuses..
The Center for Investigative Reporting’s California Watch has won a well-deserved Polk Award for their investigation in to Prime, a controversial Southern California hospital chain. Congrats to reporters Lance Williams, Christina Jewett and Stephen K. Doig for uncovering a Prime’s questionable pattern of billing Medicare for rare and unlikely ailments. Either there is some strange […]