Two bills brighten California's legislative session
By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-09-17 18:47:35 | Word Count: 623
As this year's failure of a legislative session drew to a close, two late successes are worth celebrating — both the work of Silicon Valley lawmakers and both involving, of all things, health care.
State Sen. Elaine Alquist's surprise passage of a bipartisan deal to allow nearly 700,000 California children to keep their health insurance was the proudest moment of the year for the Legislature, averting one of the cruelest effects of the budget crisis. And Assemblyman Jim Beall's bill to achieve parity in health insurance coverage will help the 7 million Californians who suffer from mental disorders but are not included in recent federal legislation that broadened the right to coverage.
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should sign both bills into law.
The governor has applauded Alquist's bill, which is primarily funded by a 2.35 percent tax on premiums for health insurers that serve Medi-Cal patients — a tax the insurers have agreed to pay because they can recoup the money from federal matching funds. This was a very creative solution to a budget problem. It can salvage California's reputation as a leader in providing care to children.
Beall and other crusaders for mental health parity are holding their breaths to see whether Schwarzenegger will sign AB244. It would require insurers to provide the same level of coverage to patients with mental and substance abuse disorders as they do for physical illnesses — and, over time, it would go a long way toward removing the stigma still attached to mental illness.
It comes on the heels of bipartisan federal legislation requiring companies with over 50 employees to offer policies that treat mental illnesses in the same manner that they treat physical problems. Effective in January, it will bring coverage to about 13 million Californians, but didn't help an additional 7 million sufferers. AB244 fills that gap.
The governor last year vetoed a similar bill, citing funding issues. It was a weak argument then, and this year it won't fly at all. The California Health Benefits Review Board estimates the increase in health insurance premiums at less than 1 percent, or from 4 to 38 cents a month per policy. That dwarfs the potential benefits to not just victims of mental illness but to businesses, governments and society in general.
A new study of businesses in New Jersey indicates that investing in treatment would result in lower health care costs, higher productivity and lower absentee rates for employees.
Dealing with the mentally ill and substance abusers costs state and local governments hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Every victim who can be kept out of state prison saves taxpayers $50,000 a year.
Doctors have known for years that mental illnesses are biologically based brain disorders, but far too many people still act as if they are caused by human weakness. The mentally ill deserve the same level of care and dignity as patients with any other kind of disorder.
There's a theme here: Caring for the most vulnerable among us. The Legislature did good work in producing these bills in an otherwise unproductive session, and both should become law.
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