BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 388 (Mitchell) - Solicitation and enrollment
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|Version: February 25, 2015 |Policy Vote: HEALTH 8 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
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|Hearing Date: May 4, 2015 |Consultant: Brendan McCarthy |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 388 would designate the uniform summary of benefits
and coverage information, which must be provided to consumers by
health plans and health insurers, a vital document. That would
require health plans and health insurers to provide the document
in certain languages other than English.
Fiscal
Impact:
One-time administrative costs likely between $150,000 and
$300,000 to develop policies and translate template documents
by the Department of Insurance (Insurance Fund).
One-time administrative costs of about $200,000 to develop
policies and translate template documents by the Department of
Managed Health Care (Managed Care Fund).
SB 388 (Mitchell) Page 1 of
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Background: Under current law, health insurers and health plans
(collectively referred to as "carriers") are required to provide
consumers with certain vital documents, such as application
forms, consent forms, and certain notices, in "threshold
languages". The threshold depends on the size of the plan's
enrollment and the number of limited-English proficient
enrollees. Currently there are ten threshold languages in the
state (Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Russian,
Armenian, Khmer, Arabic, and Hmong).
In addition, state law requires carriers to translate certain
documents, including the uniform summary of benefits and
coverage, into non-English languages if the carrier markets
coverage in that non-English language. This requirement applies
to languages which are not threshold languages.
Federal law requires carriers to provide enrollees with a
uniform summary of benefits and coverage, which provides
information about covered services, cost sharing, and other key
information about the enrollee's health care coverage. Federal
law requires the uniform summary of benefits and coverage to be
translated into non-English languages when 10 percent or more of
the population of the enrollees county speaks that language.
The federal standard is less stringent than state law for
translation of vital documents. Under federal law, only Spanish
and Chinese meet the thresholds requiring translation of the
uniform summary of benefits and coverage into those languages.
Whereas, current state law requires vital documents to be
translated into ten languages.
Proposed Law:
SB 388 would designate the uniform summary of benefits and
coverage information, which must be provided to consumers by
health plans and health insurers, a vital document. That would
require health plans and health insurers to provide the document
in certain threshold languages other than English.
The bill would require the Department of Insurance and the
SB 388 (Mitchell) Page 2 of
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Department of Managed Health Care to post written translations
of the template uniform summary of benefits and coverage in the
threshold languages by January 1, 2016.
Related
Legislation: SB 353 (Lieu, Statutes of 2013) requires the
translation of specified documents into a non-English languages
when a carrier markets or advertises health care coverage in
that language.
Staff
Comments: The only costs that may be incurred by a local agency
relate to crimes and infractions. Under the California
Constitution, such costs are not reimbursable by the state.
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