California Watch
News stories in this section spotlight activities in California, including actions by the state Assembly and state Senate; proposed legislation; regulators like the Department of Managed Health Care and Department of Insurance; and the state ACA exchange, Covered California.
Heading into Obamacare’s third open enrollment starting Nov. 1, uninsured Californians know more about the stick of federal tax penalties than the carrot of premium subsidies. Officials at the Covered California exchange say that’s a problem because consumers regularly cite high costs as the reason they don’t sign up. Survey data released Thursday show that ...
California made national news last week when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill allowing doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to patients who are terminally ill and want to die. But many quieter bills also will change health care in the state. The first half of the 2015-2016 legislative session ended last weekend ...
Consumers Union wants the Medical Board of California to require doctors who are on probation to notify their patients. The policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports filed a petition last week urging the board to take action. The board is expected to hold a public hearing on the issue at its Oct. 30 meeting ...
An analysis of narrow networks on the Covered California health plan marketplace found that in most cases consumers don’t need to worry that they are trading quality of care for lower costs. While Covered California plans did offer narrower hospital networks, there was no significant relationship between raw network size and performance, according to the ...
Health insurer Aetna’s proposed $37 billion acquisition of smaller rival Humana Inc was approved by the shareholders of both companies. The companies continue to expect the deal to close in the second half of 2016, they said in separate statements on Monday. Aetna in July said it would buy Humana to become the largest provider ...
Blue Shield of California has agreed to limit its premiums for certain policies next year and in 2017, Payers & Providers reports. Background On Oct. 5, the California Department of Managed Health Careissued an order addressing Blue Shield’s premiums and medical loss ratio calculations. DMHC spokesperson Rodger Butler said the agency had “significant concerns with ...
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones slammed Aetna Thursday for an “unreasonable” quarterly rate hike on small-business owners that brings the annual average increase to more than 27 percent. The hike affects small employers that renew their health insurance policies in the fourth quarter — and an estimated 40,000 employees. Dept. of Insurance actuaries reviewed Aetna’s ...
CaliforniaChoice is bullish on expansion of the small-group market. Like its public counterpart, Covered California, the private insurance exchange is prepared to welcome employers with 51 to 100 employees into the program Jan. 1, 2016. California law still requires this group to be considered “small employers” for the purpose of health insurance, starting next year. ...
More than half of uninsured Californians qualify for either Medi-Cal coverage or subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to help pay premiums, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report released Tuesday, KPCC’s “KPCC News” reports. Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid program. For the state-by-state report, KFF reviewed data from the 2015 Current Population Survey Annual Social ...
In a series of bundled vetoes, Gov. Jerry Brown sent a hard-to-miss weekend message to state legislators: You dropped the ball before leaving Sacramento for 2015. Brown took action on 80 bills on Saturday, signing landmark legislation on everything from voter registration to farm animal antibiotics. But in a handful of vetoes, the governor quickly ...