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The next two weeks are pivotal for three bills that could have a significant impact on hospitals’ ability to serve their patients and communities, depending on their outcome.
Few of you have engaged so far, and the time to act is now — this week. The ask is simple: for all of you to write one letter, and for those of you with legislators on either the Senate Health or Assembly Insurance committees to make phone calls.
The deadline for bills that advanced out of their chamber of origin to be heard in the corresponding Assembly or Senate committees is July 1, so the time is now to step up our collective efforts and make your voices heard:
- Assembly Bill 2080 – Please consider calling as soon as possible, if you are represented by a member of the Senate Health Committee or the Senate Judiciary Committee to express your opposition to this bill. It would prohibit providers from entering into many forms of care arrangements and create a massive expansion of authority for the attorney general to approve, deny, or impose unlimited conditions on health care providers seeking to partner. Key messages are available.
- Senate Bill 213 – Please consider calling as soon as possible, if you are represented by a member of the Assembly Insurance Committee, to express your opposition to a bill that would create a standing presumption (rebuttable after the fact) in the workers’ compensation system that an infectious disease, musculoskeletal injury, or respiratory disease arose out of work for any hospital worker involved in direct patient care. Key messages are available.
- Senate Bill 958 – Please write, by June 22, to the Assembly Health Committee, urging legislators to support the CHA-sponsored bill (Limón, D-Santa Barbara, and Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge) that would protect medication safety for patients by preventing health plans from mandating the use of third-party vendors for specialty drugs. A template letter and key messages are available.
It’s difficult to overstate the urgency around these issues, and hospitals’ adversaries are turning up the heat on legislators. I know we can count on all of you to take the steps necessary to leave no stone unturned when it comes to securing the best environment for hospitals to serve Californians in need.
