BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION Senator Carol Liu, Chair 2015 - 2016 Regular Bill No: AB 2308 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Author: |Roger Hernández | |-----------+-----------------------------------------------------| |Version: |May 31, 2016 Hearing | | |Date: June 22, 2016 | ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes | ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Consultant:|Lenin DelCastillo | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Health care coverage: information to students SUMMARY This bill requires the California State University (CSU) and the California Community Colleges (CCC's) to provide students with information about health care coverage options. This bill also extends the sunset date by two years to January 1, 2021, for K-12 school districts to provide parents with this information on school enrollment forms. BACKGROUND Existing law: 1) Establishes the California Health Benefit Exchange, known as Covered California, as an independent state entity to serve as the marketplace for Californians to purchase health care coverage and as a way to meet the personal responsibility requirements of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 2) Authorizes school districts and county offices of education to incorporate into the School Lunch Program application packet or notification of eligibility that the student may qualify for free or reduced-cost health coverage under the California Health Benefit Exchange. (Education Code § 49557.2) AB 2308 (Roger Hernández) Page 2 of ? ANALYSIS This bill: 1) Extends, from January 1, 2019 to January 1, 2021, the sunset date in existing law that requires public schools to provide parents or legal guardians with information regarding health care coverage options and assistance, as specified. 2) Establishes the California Health Care Coverage Act of 2016. 3) Requires, commencing with the 2017-18 academic year, each campus of the CSU and CCC to provide students contact information about health care coverage options. To satisfy this requirement, authorizes CSU and CCC campuses to: a) Develop an informational item or amend an existing enrollment form or Internet Web site to provide students information about health care coverage options. Provides that a campus may use information provided in the standard template developed by the California Department of Education, as specified. b) Include a fact sheet with its enrollment forms explaining basic information about affordable health care coverage options for students. 4) Prohibits a California State University (CSU) or California Community College (CCC) campus from discriminating against a student who does not have health care coverage or use any information related to a student's health care coverage or interest in learning about health care coverage in any manner that would bring harm to the student. AB 2308 (Roger Hernández) Page 3 of ? 5) Establishes a sunset date for the CSU and CCC requirements of January 1, 2021. STAFF COMMENTS 1) Need for the bill. According to the author's office, "the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded health care coverage options and made approximately seven million Californians newly eligible for coverage as of January 1, 2014. Of those nearly 67% qualify for Medi-Cal. There is great opportunity to enroll the eligible; however, notable barriers exist for populations to enroll in health care coverage including lack of awareness about the programs, difficult application or re-enrollment processes, and stigmas associated with enrolling into low-income health insurance and other public programs. While the Affordable Care Act has dramatically reduced the number of uninsured Californians, a significant number of the population has been left behind in the absence of proactive and practical solutions." By utilizing schools and universities, this bill is intended to provide essential information and educate students and families about eligibility and available health coverage programs. 2) Related efforts. AB 2706 (Hernandez, Chapter 827, Statutes of 2014) was enacted to require K-12 school districts and charter schools to provide health care coverage information to students and their families at the time of school enrollment. This bill creates a similar form of outreach for CSU and CCC in which the campuses can provide students with information on health care coverage options through enrollment forms, fact sheets attached to the enrollment forms, or items posted on Internet Web sites. The California Department of Education's Web site also contains information about the ALL IN for Health Campaign for schools, early learning programs, and after school programs. This information includes advice that schools can provide information to families about health coverage options. http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/el/le/yr14ltr0310.asp 3) Clarifying amendments. At the author's request, staff AB 2308 (Roger Hernández) Page 4 of ? recommends that the bill be amended to: specify that the information about health care coverage options include how to apply for Medi-Cal and Covered California; and replace the references to "information on health care coverage options and enrollment assistance" with "information on insurance affordability programs." 4) Fiscal impact. According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, this bill would result in the following: a) K-12. The estimated state reimbursable cost of the original legislation, as estimated by this Committee, was $700,000 to $1.1 million annually (General Fund (GF)-Prop 98) to disseminate the required information to 6.2 million students from 2015-16 through 2017-18. It is too early to know the actual costs, but this bill would extend these costs through 2020-2021. b) California Community Colleges (CCCs). Assuming similar costs to K-12 for providing the required information to 2.3 million CCC students yields annual state reimbursable costs of $250,000 to $400,000 (GF-Prop). c) California State University. Annual General Fund costs to provide the information to all students would be around $50,000. SUPPORT American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees California Black Health Network California Children's Health Coverage Coalition California Coverage and Health Initiatives California Faculty Association California Health Advocates California Immigrant Policy Center California Primary Care Association California School Employees Association California State Student Association AB 2308 (Roger Hernández) Page 5 of ? California Teachers Association Children's Partnership Community Health Councils Health Access California National Association of Social Workers - California Chapter OPPOSITION None received. -- END --