Speaking before the Association of Community College Trustees' Leadership Congress, Schwarzenegger said, "I made it very clear to the legislators and to the leaders that if this does not get done, then I will veto a lot of their legislation" (Sanders, Sacramento Bee, 10/9).
Some of the bills currently on the governor's desk include:
AB 2 by Assembly member Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate), which would require health insurers to undergo a review and demonstrate intentional misrepresentation before rescinding an individual health insurance policy. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar measure last year;
AB 98 also by De La Torre, which would require health insurance plans to cover maternity services. Some business groups, insurers and Republican legislators oppose the measure;
AB 119 by Assembly member Dave Jones (D-Sacramento), which would prohibit health insurers from charging different premiums based on gender. Some business groups, health plans and Republican legislators oppose the measure;
SB 820 by Sens. Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley) and Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino), which would require medical staff peer review committees to report physicians with substance abuse or mental health issues to the Medical Board of California. The board would then follow up and review any corrective action imposed (California Healthline, 9/21); and
AB 1383 also by Jones, which would impose a fee on hospitals in order to draw down increased federal reimbursements for Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program. Officials say the governor has signaled an inclination to veto the proposal because of concerns raised by anti-tax groups (California Healthline, 10/7).
On Thursday, Schwarzenegger met with legislative leaders from both parties in an effort to strike a water deal. Negotiations are expected to continue in the coming days.
The governor has until midnight Sunday to take action on the bills on his desk.
Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) dismissed the veto threat and said he is confident the governor will consider each bill on its merits (Sacramento Bee, 10/9).
New Research Points to Racial, Ethnic Disparities in California Health Care
Black HMO members in California are significantly more likely to seek treatment in hospital emergency departments and delay filling prescriptions than members of other racial or ethnic groups, researchers from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research found, Payers & Providers reports.
ED Data
The data indicate that 25% of black HMO members visited a hospital ED last year, compared with 18% of white HMO members and 13% of Asian-American HMO members.
In general, members of plans offered by Kaiser Permanente were more likely than members of other plans to seek care in EDs, but black Kaiser members still were 40% more likely than whites to go to an ED for care.
Filling Prescriptions
The study also found that 24.5% of blacks reported putting off filling a prescription, compared with 14.9% of whites, 10.8% of Hispanics and 6.1% of Asian-Americans.
Among members of Kaiser plans, 16.4% of blacks reported delaying filling a prescription, compared with 11.2% of whites, 8.8% of Hispanics and 8.2% of Asian-Americans (Payers & Providers [1], 10/8).
C-Section Data
A separate study by Kaiser's research arm found that black and Asian-American women underwent caesarean sections for first births at significantly higher rates than white or Hispanic women, according to Payers & Providers.
The study was based on data from Kaiser hospitals in Southern California and was published in the October issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
The study found that black Kaiser members were 25% more likely than white members to undergo a c-section and Asian-American members were 19% more likely than white members to have a c-section for their first pregnancy (Payers & Providers [2], 10/8).
State Officials Voicing Concerns About Costs of Health Care Overhaul
This week, state officials received an indication of how much a proposal under current health reform bills to expand Medicaid eligibility would affect them, which puts many governors in the uncomfortable position of addressing the rising number of uninsured residents while protecting their states' bottom lines, the Baltimore Sun reports.
The Congressional Budget Office earlier this week estimated that state spending on Medicaid will increase by $33 billion over the next decade under the Senate Finance Committee's health reform bill, which expands Medicaid eligibility to individuals with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level (Smitherman, Baltimore Sun, 10/9).
The proposal would have the federal government pick up between 77% and 95% of the cost of the expansion, with states contributing the difference.
Under a deal reached between Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the federal government would contribute 100% of the cost of the expansion in Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Rhode Island for the first five years (California Healthline, 10/5).
Republican governors and some Democrats have expressed concern regarding how their states will pay for the expansion.
Some states have indicated that they could benefit from the proposal.
For example, Maryland leaders believe the move could actually save the state money through reduced pharmaceutical prices and other measures, even though the expansion would mean 150,000 additional Maryland residents could enroll in Medicaid at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to the state annually.
According to the Sun, Maryland officials believe the federal plan would slow the rate at which health care costs increase because fewer uninsured people would be forced to seek treatment at hospitals.
The Sun reports that could result in lower overall health care costs for the state and, in turn, lower insurance premiums for those who are covered (Baltimore Sun, 10/9).
California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of October 9
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, Colton
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center has been awarded a $245,334 grant from the California HealthCare Foundation, which will allow the facility to fully implement its Palliative Care Service program, the San Bernardino County Sun reports.
CHCF is the publisher of California Healthline.
The two-year grant will allow the program to serve about 144 patients in the first year, and twice that number in the second year, hospital officials said (Sorba, San Bernardino County Sun, 10/6).
El Camino Hospital, Mountain View
On Saturday, El Camino Hospital held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new $480 million acute care center, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
The 450,000 square foot expansion adds an additional 241 beds to the hospital, bringing the total number of beds on the campus to 327.
El Camino began the construction on the facility five years ago to meet new state seismic safety standards (Samuels, San Jose Mercury News, 10/3).
Los Alamitos Medical Center
Los Alamitos Medical Center has released a 25-year expansion plan that calls for a new 80,000 square foot medical office building, two new towers with a maximum capacity of 602 beds, parking structures and a central plant for the campus, the Orange County Register reports.
The Los Alamitos City Council is considering serving as the head agency on the facility's environmental report for the expansion plan.
The hospital would give the city $50,000 toward the cost of the study up front and reimburse the city for the remaining cost of the study (Fletcher, Orange County Register, 10/2).
Ojai Valley Community Hospital, Ventura County
Last week, Ojai Valley Community Hospital held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its renovated emergency department, the Ventura County Star reports. The $2 million project included $1.7 million for the ED and the rest for other repairs.
The ED now has a separate admitting and waiting area and six new treatment areas.
According to Tim Wolfe, chair of the Ojai Valley Community Hospital Foundation, the hospital still needs to make seismic retrofits, renovate the exterior, improve the radiology department and open a new post-anesthesia unit (Kallas, Ventura County Star, 10/1).
St. John's Health Center, Santa Monica
St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica has received $100 million from Abraxis BioScience founder and CEO Patrick Soon-Shiong and his wife, Michele Chan, to develop a state-of-the-art data-sharing network that links physicians and patients to other hospitals and ongoing research being conducted at USC and UCLA, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The donation is the largest individual gift St. John's has ever received and one of the largest given to a community hospital in California (Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times, 10/1).
Stanford Hospital & Clinics, Palo Alto
Stanford Hospital & Clinics recently invested $3 million on Hill-Rom lifting equipment to help patients get in and out of bed safely and prevent injuries among medical staff, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
Over the summer, Stanford installed eight overhead lifts, 24 mobile lifts, a lift solely for moving exceptionally overweight patients, and 26 air-powered transfer systems for moving patients from a bed to an X-ray table or other treatment sites.
In a statement, Joan Forte, Stanford Hospital & Clinics' interim associate director of nursing, said that the equipment "may eventually pay for itself" by reducing the number of workers' compensation claims due to heavy lifting and other expenses (Rauber, San Francisco Business Journal, 10/2).
UC-Irvine Medical Center, Orange
On Oct. 2, the California Nurses Association protested the closure of a 13-bed geriatric psychiatric unit at UC-Irvine Medical Center, the Register's "Healthy Living" reports.
The unit was closed because it was chronically underused, according to hospital spokesperson John Murray.
The geriatric psychiatric patients and their nurses are expected to be incorporated into the adult psychiatric ward at UCIMC (Perkes, "Healthy Living," Orange County Register, 10/2).
UC-San Francisco, Mission Bay
On Oct. 2, UC-San Francisco opened its new 42,000 square foot Orthopaedic Institute in Mission Bay, the Business Times reports.
The facility has 28 exam rooms, four operating rooms and two procedure rooms. The institute will provide outpatient treatment, research, and training in musculoskeletal conditions, injuries and sports medicine (Leuty, San Francisco Business Times, 10/2).
Valley Health System
On Tuesday, the board of directors for Valley Health System voted 6-1 in favor of the sale of its assets -- including Hemet Valley Medical Center and Menifee Valley Medical Center -- to Physicians for Healthy Hospitals, a group of 132 physicians who practice in the hospital district, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
The $162 million sale covers the hospital district's debt to its bondholders and unsecured creditors, as well as the fair market value of the district's assets, officials said.
The terms of the agreement require PHH to retain almost all of the district's employees and services, including its hospitals' EDs.
The sale has to be approved by district voters before it is finalized. An election will be held Dec. 15 (Hines, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 10/6).
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