Supreme Court Ruling on ACA

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the King vs. Burwell Case, which challenged the subsidies provided through the Internal Revenue Service in 36 exchanges run by the federal government under the law. Challengers argued that the law prohibited subsidies in federal exchanges and that the law only applied to subsidies established by a State.

The proceeding decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that applicable statutory language was ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations and government and its regulators had precedent to interpret the law.

This week, the Supreme Court upheld that ruling. The Full court decision can be found here.

Budget

Governor Brown signed the 2015-16 budget on Thursday, June 25. In the Governor’s signed budget, Health and Human Services spending remain unchanged from the Legislature’s modified budget package as reported in our June 19 Budget Action Bulletin. The Governor’s Summary and veto message package can be found here.

Special Session on Health Care

As part of the 2015-16 budget agreement with Legislative Leaders, Governor Brown called for an extraordinary special session on Health Care Financing Issues. The special session would likely focus on Medi-Cal financing and the authorization of the Managed Care Organization (MCO) tax.

Speaker Atkins announced the Assembly Members to serve on the Special Session Committees, listed below. We are still awaiting an announcement from the Senate.

Rules

Same as regular session

Finance

Assembly Member Weber will chair the Finance Committee alongside Vice Chair Assembly Member Melendez. Committee Members include Assembly Members Bigelow, Bloom, Gomez, Jones-Sawyer, McCarty, Obernolte and Phil Ting.

Public Health

Chairing the Committee will be Assembly Member Bonta with Vice Chair Assembly Member Maienschein. Also serving on the Committee are Assembly Members Baker, Bonilla, Campos, Garcia, Levine, Mayes, Santiago, Steinorth, Stone, Thurmond, and Wood.

Additional information related to the Special Session on Health Care can be found on our website here.

Stepping Up Tool Kit

The Stepping Up Initiative – launched by the National Association of Counties (NACo), the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the American Psychiatric Foundation (APF) - released a Resources Toolkit to aid in creating tailored plans to reduce the number of people with mental illness in jails.

CSAC hosted a press conference in May with state and county officials as part of the national effort.

Vaccinations

SB 277 (Pan) – SUPPORT
As Amended on June 18, 2015

This week, the Assembly Floor heard SB 277, which seeks to eliminate the personal belief exemption for existing required immunizations in order to attend private (K-12) schools and daycare facilities. As amended last week, physicians would now be able to consider family medical history for medical exemptions.

SB 277 passed with 46 ‘Aye’ votes, 31 ‘No’ votes and 3 abstentions. It now heads back to the Senate for concurrence on the amended version and then potentially to the Governor for action.

CalWORKs

AB 702 (Maienschein) – SUPPORT 
As Introduced on February 25, 2015

AB 702 by Assembly Member Brian Maienschein, was unanimously passed by the Senate Human Services Committee. AB 702 seeks to eliminate the requirement that temporary housing assistance be provided during one period of consecutive days up to 16 days. Instead, it would limit temporary housing assistance to a maximum of 16 calendar days. This measure now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

IHSS

AB 1436 (Burke) – SUPPORT 
As Amended on May 6, 2015

AB 1436 by Assembly Member Autumn Burke creates an authorized representative structure for the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Program – which enables adults and children who need help with daily living activities remain in their own home rather than being institutionalized. Other county-administered programs, including Medi-Cal, CalWORKs and CalFresh, have statutory or regulator procedures for applicants and recipients to designate an authorized representative to act on their behalf in signing up for the program, receiving services and participating in the appeal process.

AB 1436 would create a statutory authority for an IHSS recipient or applicant to name an authorized representative, which would be completely optional to them.

With no opposition on file and unanimous votes along the way, AB 1436 was passed by the Senate Human Services Committee and is heading to the Senate Appropriations Committee.