Positions on Legislation
Below is a list of California State Senate and Assembly bills and where CAFP stands on each. Click on a bill to read a description.
SB 393 (Hernandez D) Medical Homes
Summary: Would establish the Patient-Centered Medical Home Act of 2012 to encourage licensed health care providers and patients to partner in a patient-centered medical home that promotes access to high-quality, comprehensive and coordinated care. The list of co-sponsors includes the Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California, the American Academy of Pediatrics - California chapters, the California Psychiatric Association, the California Association of Physician Assistants, the California Medical Association, the California Primary Care Association, the California Association of Physician Groups, the American College of Physicians - California chapters and the California Association for Nurse Practitioners.
AB 2064 (V. Manuel Pérez D) Immunizations for Children: Reimbursement of Physician
Summary: Would require a health plan to pay a physician or physician group the actual cost of acquiring, storing and administering immunizations. This bill is co-sponsored with the California Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics – California chapters, and the Health Officers Association of California.
SB 1416 (Rubio D) Public Postsecondary Education
Summary: Would create a Graduate Medical Education (GME) fund to add residency positions to medical residency programs that are located or have a proven record of placing graduates in medically underserved areas. This bill places an emphasis on training primary care providers and physician specialties that are most needed in the community in which the program is located.
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AB 43 (Monning D) Medi-Cal: Eligibility
Summary: This bill would require DHCS to establish a plan to transition for the newly eligible Medi-Cal patients under the ACA. It would require the state to explain the process it will use to ensure adequate primary care and specialty provider networks.
Position: Support
AB 70 (Monning D) State Department of Public Health: Funding Opportunities
Summary: Expands the California Department of Public Health's (DPH) authority to submit applications in partnership with other nonprofit health entities to increase DPH's responsiveness and flexibility when applying for funding opportunities related to health prevention.
Position: Support
AB 154 (Beall D) Health Care Coverage: Mental Health Services
Summary: This bill requires health plans and health insurers to cover the diagnosis and medically necessary treatment of a mental illness (as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV) including coverage for substance abuse. The bill excludes treatment of nicotine addiction and certain diagnoses under the "V" code designation in the DSM-IV, such as adult antisocial behavior and bereavement, due to cost concerns.
Position: Support
AB 589 (Perea D) Medical School Scholarships
Summary: This bill establishes the Steven M. Thompson Medical School Scholarship Program and, beginning January 1, 2014, redirects funding currently earmarked for the Major Risk Medical Insurance Program to the newly established scholarship program. Currently, the first $1,000,000 in fines and penalties assessed against health care service plans by DMHC are deposited into the Stephen M. Thompson Physician Corp Loan Repayment Program. Any amount over the first $1,000,000, including accrued interest, is deposited in the Major Risk Medical Insurance Fund. The fund helps to provide major risk medical coverage to eligible persons who have been rejected for coverage by at least one private health plan. Due to the coverage expansion of PPACA, this fund will be obsolete in 2014. This bill would instead transfer all of the money into the new school scholarships program.
Position: Support
AB 441 (Monning D) State Planning
Summary: This bill requires the development of guidelines for local and regional agencies to incorporate health issues into local or regional general plans and transportation plans. The goal is to develop plans that increase access to healthier food, safer parks, and transit option strategies that meet the needs of all users.
Position: Support
AB 1334 (Feuer D) Health Care Coverage
Summary: This bill would require plans and insurers to categorize all products offered in the individual market into five tiers based on actuarial value or the percentage of health care expenses paid for by health insurance versus expenses paid by beneficiaries.
Position: Support
AB 1533 (Mitchell D) Medicine: Trainees: International Medical Graduates
Summary: This University of California- and Medical Board of California-sponsored legislation would authorize a five-year UCLA International Medical Graduate (IMG) pilot program. The pilot would allow program participants to engage in supervised patient care activities for 16 to 24 weeks as part of an approved and supervised clinical clerkship/rotation at UCLA health care facilities or with other approved UCLA affiliates (e.g., participating California family medicine programs). The goal of the bill is to develop the workforce of primary care physicians in underserved communities.
Position: Support
AB 1640 (Mitchell D) CalWORKs and CalFresh Benefits: Pregnant Mothers
Summary: This bill would enact the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act of 2012, requiring payment of California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids Act (CalWORKs) aid and CalFresh benefits to eligible pregnant women or teenagers at any time after verification of pregnancy, as opposed to current law which begins benefits in the third trimester.
Position: Support
AB 1733 (Logue R) Health Care Service Plans: Telehealth
Summary: Current law prohibits health care service plans from requiring in-person contact between a patient and provider before payment is made for services provided, protecting telehealth services from payment exclusion. This bill expands that prohibition to include programs under Medi-Cal and the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PAC).
Position: Support
AB 1746 (Williams D) Schools: Nutrition: Beverages
Summary: This bill would close a loophole that allows sports drinks to be sold on middle and high school campuses. Sodas are already banned, but sports drinks, which contain replacement electrolytes as well as high-fructose corn syrup and other calorie-laden sweeteners, are not. All sugar-sweetened drinks are currently prohibited on elementary school campuses. The USDA concludes that there is no need to substitute sports drinks for water as a primary form of fluid replacement. The current school day does not include the kind of rigorous activity that warrants ready access to sports drinks.
Position: Support
AB 2009 (Galgiani D) Communicable Disease: Influenza Vaccinations
Summary: Existing law requires the State Department of Public Health to provide flu vaccine to local governmental or private nonprofit agencies at no charge in order that the agencies may provide the vaccine, at a minimal cost, at accessible locations in the order of priority first for all persons 60 years of age or older and then to any other high-risk groups identified by the United States Public Health Service. This bill would require the department to provide guidance to local agencies as to whether one or more population groups are to have priority for the flu vaccine offered through this program.
Position: Support
AB 2392 (John A. Pérez D) Medi-Cal: Interpreter Services
Summary: Would require DHCS to seek federal funding to establish a program to provide and pay for medical interpretation services to Medi-Cal beneficiaries who have limited English proficiency.
Position: Support
SB 347(Rubio) Postsecondary education: Graduate Medical Education Payments: Medi-Cal
Summary: Requires DHCS to include in its capitation rates paid to managed health care plans, an amount sufficient for the plans to make defined graduate medical education payments to providers contracting with the managed health care plans.
Position: Support
SB 575 (DeSaulnier D) Smoking in the Workplace
Summary: This bill would expand the prohibition on smoking in a place of employment to include an owner-operated business and eliminate most of the specified exemptions that permit smoking in certain work environments.
Position: Support
SB 635 (Hernandez D) Health care: Workforce Training
Summary: This bill, beginning January 1, 2014, would redirect funding currently earmarked for the Major Risk Medical Insurance Program (MRMIP) to the Song Brown Health Care Workforce Training program. Currently, the first $1,000,000 in fines and penalties assessed against health care service plans by DMHC are deposited into the Stephen M. Thompson Physician Corp Loan Repayment Program. Any amount over the first $1,000,000, including accrued interest, is deposited in the Major Risk Medical Insurance Fund. The fund helps to provide major risk medical coverage to eligible persons who have been rejected for coverage by at least one private health plan. Due to the coverage expansion of PPACA, this fund will be obsolete in 2014. This bill would instead transfer funds over the first $1,000,000 each year to the Song-Brown Health Care Workforce Training program.
Position: Support
SB 1313 (Lieu D) Health Care Coverage
Summary: This bill would ensure that Californians get accurate information about health plans and strengthen consumer protections. Among other provisions, the bill would require health plans that advertise in non-English languages to meet existing language access requirements, and to provide translation and interpretation services to protect immigrant communities from deceptive marketing practices.
Position: Support
SB 1528 (Steinberg D) Damages: Medical Services (pdf html )
Summary: This bill has the potential to change long-standing California law by allowing attorneys in all personal injury cases, including medical liability cases, to sue for and recover economic costs for medical bills that were never paid and that the injured party was never responsible for. California’s Medical Injury Compensation and Reform Act (MICRA) limits the amount attorneys can charge and non-economic damages claims in personal injury lawsuits. MICRA has helped maintain reasonable malpractice insurance rates and thereby maintained patient access to physicians. The bill explicitly states that it would ensure injured people “recover the reasonable value of medical services provided without regard to the amount actually paid.”
Position: Oppose
SB 1538 (Simitian D) Healing Arts: Mammograms
Summary: This bill has the laudable goal of giving women more control over their health by providing information to those found to have highly dense breasts. The bill requires that mammography-results letters inform these women that mammography may not be able to pick up small abnormalities in highly dense breasts and that additional screening might be necessary. Mammography is not a perfect screening tool for women at any level of breast density; nor is an ultrasound or MRI. Screening tests, by their nature, are a balance of cost, risk and benefit. As patient advocates, family physicians believe in a patient’s right to know about her breast type, but the data is not clear that additional benefits would be gained by this bill. It is clear, however, that this bill would unnecessarily increase costs, patients’ health concerns and the time spent by primary care physicians with their patients explaining the meaning of this notice. SB 1538 will be the new legislative vehicle for this concept.
Position: Oppose Unless Amended
The following are federal bills that may be of interest to family physicians. Contact CAFP for additional information on its positions on these bills.
