BILL NUMBER: SB 351	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Senator Hernandez

                        FEBRUARY 20, 2013

   An act relating to health care coverage.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   SB 351, as introduced, Hernandez. Health care coverage: emergency
care.
   Existing federal law, the federal Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (PPACA), enacts various health care coverage
market reforms that take effect January 1, 2014. Among other things,
PPACA generally prohibits a group health plan and a health insurance
issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage from
establishing lifetime limits or annual limits on the dollar value of
benefits for any participant or beneficiary.
   Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975,
provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service
plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and makes a willful
violation of the act a crime. Existing law also provides for the
regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance.
Existing law requires health insurers annually to submit to the
Department of Insurance a summary explanation of any lifetime and
annual maximums for health benefits offered pursuant to specified
provisions of law.
   This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact
legislation that would establish limits on out-of-network hospital
emergency care billing practices.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  It is the intent of the Legislature to enact
legislation to establish limits on out-of-network hospital emergency
care billing practices.