Western Center Sponsors Bills

An update from Elizabeth Landsberg, Legislative Advocate of Western Center on Law & Poverty:

Since my presentation at the WF Summit, the Western Center on Law & Poverty has sponsored four bills to improve access to health care for low-income consumers and protect them from medical debt:.

- AB 171 (Jones) would require dentists, before arranging credit cards or loans for services that the consumer has not yet received, to give a list of that treatment to the consumer. It would require dentists to provide consumers with a simple, clear notice about credit cards and loans as well as a proposed treatment plan. For consumers who do not speak English whom the dental office is serving in the consumer’s language, the notice must be provided in that language. The bill would prohibit a dentist from arranging a credit card or loan when the patient is under general anesthesia, nitrous oxide or conscious sedation.

- AB 963 (Ammiano).  Under AB 963, a Food Stamps application or renewal form would be used as a Medi-Cal application or renewal form without requiring duplicate, burdensome paperwork.  The Medi-Cal renewal form would also be improved to help beneficiaries enroll by providing them with information they had submitted previously and asking them to report changes.

- AB 1142 (Price) addresses the wrongful billing of Medi-Cal patients for covered services.  AB 1142 would require hospitals to give patient Medi-Cal eligibility to other hospital-based providers to ensure those provides can bill Medi-Cal.  It would require Medi-Cal providers who turn accounts over to collection agencies to ensure that if the collection agency gets evidence of Medi-Cal coverage, they have to return the account to the provider and require collection agencies to take a negative report to a credit reporting agency off if the patient had Medi-Cal.  Lastly, the bill would allow DHCS to impose monetary sanctions on providers who bill Medi-Cal beneficiaries.

- SB 114 (Liu) would institute a passive annual renewal process for the Former Foster Care Child Medi-Cal Program to ensure they stay enrolled in the program until the age of 21.

Western Center also worked to oppose the Medi-Cal cuts proposed in the budget.  For a summary on the impact of the February 2009 budget package on Medi-Cal click here.

Because the budget “trigger cuts” include cutting nine benefits from the Medi-Cal package for adults, we testified about the impact of these cuts and on possible sources of revenue that should be counted to reach the $10 billion threshold to avoid these cuts.  For a copy of Western Center’s letter to the Treasurer and the Department of Finance on the “trigger” click here.

Eliminating the adult Medi-Cal benefits slated to be cut July 1, 2009 would be devastating to Medi-Cal consumers.  For Western Center’s piece on the impact of these cuts click here.  For a piece from the Health Consumer Alliance, of which Western Center is a member, on the impact of the elimination of dental benefits for adults on Medi-Cal click here.

Western Center testified at an Assembly budget subcommittee hearing on the impact of the recession on the Medi-Cal program.

For a summary of additional legislation we are tracking, click here.