BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 145|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 145
Author: Gomez (D)
Amended: 8/19/15 in Senate
Vote: 27 - Urgency
SENATE HEALTH COMMITTEE: 9-0, 6/10/15
AYES: Hernandez, Nguyen, Hall, Mitchell, Monning, Nielsen,
Pan, Roth, Wolk
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 4/9/15 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT: Public benefits reports
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill 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. This bill
contains an urgency clause that will make this bill effective
upon enactment.
Senate Floor Amendments of 8/19/15 make the change proposed by
this bill to what is now existing law, which was changed in June
2015 by the human services Budget Trailer Bill, (SB 79,
Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, Chapter 20, Statutes of
2015).
ANALYSIS:
AB 145
Page 2
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 DOF to transmit to the Legislature and post on
the 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.
2)Takes effect immediately as an urgency statute.
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 the DOF, after
obtaining specified information from the 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 145
Page 3
AB 1792 also amended Unemployment Insurance Code Section 1095,
which governs when and under what circumstances the EDD may
permit 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 corrects the drafting error to
Unemployment Insurance Code Section 1095.
Comments
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.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified8/20/15)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
California Labor Federation
California State Council of the Service Employees International
Union
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California
Service Employees International Union Local 1000
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/20/15)
None received
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: Service Employees International Union
Local 1000 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.
AB 145
Page 4
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 4/9/15
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Campos, Chang, Chau,
Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly,
Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina
Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez,
Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Holden,
Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder,
Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina,
Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, Olsen, Patterson,
Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas,
Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner,
Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins
NO VOTE RECORDED: Calderon, O'Donnell
Prepared by:Scott Bain / HEALTH /
8/21/15 14:09:12
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