October 2024
Wesley G. Bradford, MD, MPH
Gov Newsom has vetoed AB 2250, a CAFP-supported bill to address social determinants of health (SDOH) that impact millions of Californians. This bill would have helped health equity by providing coverage for SDOH screenings and ensuring patients had access to community health workers, peer support specialists, and lay health workers to help address critical social needs like housing, food, and transportation, which are just as vital as medical care to health.
The Governor’s veto message expressed concerns over the bill’s overlap with existing initiatives like CalAIM and a federal billing code for SDOH assessments, as well as challenges operationalizing “adequate access” to community health workers. However, CAFP contends that current efforts remain insufficient, and AB 2250 would have filled critical gaps for family physicians and other providers to adequately address the complex social needs of their patients.
CAFP urges a Yes vote on Prop 35 on Nov 5. It would make permanent the existing tax on managed health care insurance plans to help pay for Medi-Cal services (about $2B per year). California’s health care system is in crisis, with hospitals closing, or stopping labor & delivery services. Emergency departments are overcrowded, and Medi-Cal patients can’t get timely appointments to a doctor or specialist. Care for 15 million children, seniors, disabled and low-income families on Medi-Cal is significantly underfunded (we all pay for the consequences of this). (No opposing arguments were submitted.)
The US CMS Rule 2442-F requires states to publish all FFS Medicaid fee payment rates on a public website, to compare their FFS payment rates for primary care, OB/GYN, and outpatient mental health & substance use disorder services to Medicare rates, and to publish this analysis every 2 years (embarrass them into fixing those payment rates!). Other details are at https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/ensuring-access-medicaid-services-final-rule-cms-2442-f.
New California bills signed into law:
- AB 254 & AB 352 strengthens confidentiality of reproductive, gender-related & abortion-related health information in California.
- AB 33 & SB 19 establishes a Fentanyl Misuse and Overdose Prevention Task Force.
- AB 461 requires campus health centers to stock and distribute fentanyl test strips to students.
- SB 234 requires opioid antagonists to be available in public stadiums, concert venues, and amusement parks.
- AB 1166 would shield from liability for administering an opioid antagonist for suspected overdose.
- AB 470 updates CME standards to further promote cultural and linguistic competency and enhance the quality of physician-patient communication.
