BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
Senator Ed Hernandez, O.D., Chair
BILL NO: AB 145
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|AUTHOR: |Gomez |
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|VERSION: |January 13, 2015 |
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|HEARING DATE: |June 10, 2015 | | |
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|CONSULTANT: |Scott Bain |
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SUBJECT : Public benefits reports.
SUMMARY : Corrects a drafting error in legislation enacted last year
related to a report of employers with employees who are enrolled
in the Medi-Cal Program. Contains an urgency clause that will
make this bill effective upon enactment.
Existing law:
1)Requires, until January 1, 2020, the Director of the
Employment Development Department (EDD) to permit the use of
specified information in his or her possession by the
Department of Finance (DOF) to prepare and submit to the
Legislature a report that identifies all employers in
California that employ 50 or more employees who receive
benefits from the Medi-Cal program.
2)Requires the Department of Finance (DOF) to transmit to the
Legislature and post on DOF's Web site a report that lists the
500 employers in the state with the most number of employees
enrolled in the Medi-Cal program, as specified. Defines an
"employer" for this purpose as an individual or organization
that employs 100 or more Medi-Cal beneficiaries who meet
certain criteria.
This bill:
1)Corrects a drafting error in legislation enacted last year
related to a report of employers that employ Medi-Cal
beneficiaries by revising the requirement applicable to the
Director of EDD to permit the use of specified information by
the DOF to prepare and submit a report that identifies all
employers in California that employ 100 or more employees who
receive Medi-Cal benefits, instead of 50 or more employees in
existing law.
AB 145 (Gomez) Page 2 of ?
2)Takes effect immediately as an urgency statute.
FISCAL
EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, no
state fiscal impact as the bill makes conforming changes to
existing law.
PRIOR
VOTES :
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|Assembly Floor: |78 - 0 |
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|Assembly Appropriations Committee: |16 - 0 |
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|Assembly Labor and Employment |7 - 0 |
|Committee: | |
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COMMENTS :
1)Author's statement. According to the author, AB 145 is a
cleanup measure to last year's AB 1792 (Gomez). By agreement,
the author indicates he changed the employer size threshold in
that measure from 50 to 100 employees. However, this change
was not made in one code section, and this bill corrects that
drafting error.
2)Background. AB 1792 (Gomez, Chapter 889, Statutes of 2014),
required the preparation of an annual report regarding
employers in the state with the largest number of employees
who are Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Specifically, that bill
required DOF, after obtaining specified information from EDD,
to annually transmit to the Legislature and post on its
Internet Web site a report beginning in 2016 that, among other
things, identifies the 500 employers in the state with the
most number of employees enrolled in Medi-Cal, ranked by the
number of those employees, as specified. The operative
language of AB 1792 defined an "employer" as an individual or
organization that employs 100 or more beneficiaries of the
Medi-Cal program.
AB 1792 also amended Unemployment Insurance Code Section 1095,
which governs when and under what circumstances EDD may permit
AB 145 (Gomez) Page 3 of ?
the use of otherwise confidential information within its
possession. However, the amendment to that section of law
mistakenly defined "employer" to mean an individual or
organization that employs 50 (rather than 100) beneficiaries
of the Medi-Cal Program. This bill would correct the drafting
error to Unemployment Insurance Code Section 1095.
3)Support. SEIU writes in support that that this bill fixes one
small drafting error in AB 1792, and this bill simply corrects
that oversight and reconciles the code sections.
SUPPORT AND OPPOSITION :
Support: American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, AFL-CIO
California State Council of the Service Employees
International Union
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California
Service Employees International Union Local 1000
Oppose: None received
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