BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 388
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Date of Hearing: July 15, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 388
(Mitchell) - As Amended July 6, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
No
SUMMARY:
This bill designates the uniform summary of benefits and
coverage (SBC) information that must be provided to consumers by
health plans and health insurers as a vital document, thereby
SB 388
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requiring it to be provided in certain languages other than
English.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Estimated one-time costs of $350,000 (Managed Care Fund) to
the Department of Managed Health Care for translation, policy
development, and technical assistance to plans regarding
issues related to using the templates.
2)Similar one-time costs for similar activities at the
Department of Insurance, as well as $60,000 ongoing to ensure
compliance (Insurance Fund).
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires plans and insurers to
provide consumers with an easy to understand SBC to help them
evaluate and compare their health insurance options. The SBC
includes key features of coverage, such as covered benefits,
cost-sharing provisions, and coverage limitations as well as a
standard glossary of terms. Unfortunately, federal standards
on translating the SBC are inconsistent with California's
translation requirements. The author states that this bill
makes clear that translation of the SBC must be consistent
with California's current language access laws, helping to
ensure that more Californians are informed about their health
coverage options and have equal access to critical information
about their health care.
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2)Background. A range of federal and state laws and regulations
apply to language access for consumer documents produced by a
health plan or insurer documents. Federal law requires
carriers to provide enrollees with a uniform SBC, which
provides information about covered services, cost sharing, and
other key information about the enrollee's health care
coverage. Federal law requires the uniform SBC to be
translated into non-English languages when 10 percent or more
of the population of the enrollees' county speaks that
language. Under federal law, only Spanish and Chinese meet the
thresholds requiring translation. State law requires vital
documents to be translated into ten languages (Spanish,
Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Russian, Armenian,
Khmer, Arabic, and Hmong).
Analysis Prepared by:Lisa Murawski / APPR. / (916)
319-2081