BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 514 (Anderson) - California Health Benefit Exchange
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|Version: January 15, 2016 |Policy Vote: HEALTH 6-0 |
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|Urgency: Yes |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: January 21, 2016 |Consultant: Brendan McCarthy |
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*********** ANALYSIS ADDENDUM - SUSPENSE FILE ***********
The following information is revised to reflect amendments
adopted by the committee on January 21, 2016
Bill
Summary: SB 514 would prohibit the California Health Benefit
Exchange (Covered California) from sharing personal information
from an applicant for health care coverage with a certified
insurance agent or certified enrollment counsellor without the
consent of the applicant.
Fiscal
Impact:
Potential one-time costs of about $300,000 to modify
information technology systems by Covered California to allow
applicants to indicate whether they would like assistance
(special fund). The bill, as amended, does not require Covered
California to develop a process for allowing an applicant to
indicate whether personal information can be shared. If
Covered California does develop such a system, it would incur
the costs above.
SB 514 (Anderson) Page 1 of
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Unknown potential costs to develop the systems and procedures
to pass along consumer information (upon consumer request) to
certified insurance agents or enrollment counsellors (special
fund). In addition to the system changes needed to allow a
consumer to consent to having contact information shared with
insurance agents or enrollment counsellors, Covered California
will need to develop systems and procedures for taking the
appropriate information and sharing it with the appropriate
partners. Covered California does not yet have a plan for how
that process would work, so no cost estimates are available at
this time. It is likely that the costs to create those "back
end" systems would be in the low hundreds of thousands. As
noted above, those costs would only occur if Covered
California decided to implement a system to allow the sharing
of applicant information, with consumer consent.
Potential minor costs to revise paper applications for health
care coverage by the Department of Health Care Services
(General Fund and federal funds). The state uses a single
paper application for the Medi-Cal program and coverage
through Covered California. In order to comply with the
requirements of this bill, the Department would likely need to
update the paper application to opt out of future contacts.
The costs to do so are not expected to be significant since
the Department regularly revises those forms.
Committee
Amendments: Eliminate the requirement that Covered California
allow an applicant to indicate whether or not the applicant
would like his or her personal information shared with a
certified insurance agent or enrollment counsellor. (The bill
would continue to prohibit such information sharing without the
consent of an applicant.)
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