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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California state lawmakers this yr are persevering with their progressive tilt on well being coverage with dozens of proposals together with a ban on a Froot Loops ingredient and free condoms for prime schoolers.
As states more and more fracture alongside partisan strains, California Democrats are stamping their supermajority on laws that they are going to think about till they adjourn on the finish of August. However the price of these proposals might be a significant component given the enormity of the state’s deficit, presently estimated at between $38 billion and $73 billion.
Well being Protection
Lawmakers are once more contemplating whether or not to create a government-run, single-payer well being care system for all Californians. AB 2200 is Democratic Meeting member Ash Kalra’s second such try, after the same invoice failed in 2022. The value tag can be monumental, although proponents say there would even be associated financial savings. The excessive potential price left Meeting Speaker Robert Rivas and others skeptical it might turn out to be legislation whereas the state faces a deficit.
AB 4 would require Coated California, the state’s medical health insurance change, to supply medical health insurance insurance policies to people who find themselves in any other case not capable of get hold of protection due to their immigration standing, to the extent it may underneath federal legislation. That might ultimately result in sponsored insurance coverage premiums much like these provided in Colorado and Washington.
Medical Debt
Well being care suppliers and assortment companies can be barred from sharing sufferers’ medical debt with credit score reporting companies underneath SB 1061. The invoice would additionally prohibit credit score reporting companies from accepting, storing, or sharing any such info with out shopper consent. Final yr, the Biden administration introduced plans to develop federal guidelines barring unpaid medical payments from affecting sufferers’ credit score scores. California can be the third state to take away medical payments from shopper credit score studies.
Medi-Cal
The Medi-Cal program, which offers well being look after low-income individuals, can be required to cowl medically supportive meals and diet beginning July 1, 2026, underneath AB 1975. The invoice builds on an present however restricted pilot program. The laws says Californians of colour may gain advantage from enough meals and diet to fight largely preventable power well being situations, and it’s certainly one of 14 measures sought by the California Legislative Black Caucus as a part of reparations for racial injustice.
Greater than 1.6 million California residents, disproportionately Latinos, have been kicked off Medi-Cal because the state resumed annual eligibility checks that have been halted throughout the covid-19 pandemic. AB 2956 would have the state search federal approval to sluggish these disenrollments by taking steps similar to letting individuals 19 and older hold their protection routinely for 12 months.
Violence Prevention
A rise in assaults on well being staff is prompting lawmakers to think about boosting felony penalties. In California, easy assault in opposition to staff inside an ER is taken into account the identical as easy assault in opposition to nearly anybody else, and carries a most punishment of a $1,000 nice and 6 months in jail. In distinction, easy assault in opposition to emergency medical staff within the discipline, similar to an EMT responding to a 911 name, carries most penalties of a $2,000 nice and a yr in jail. AB 977 would set the identical most penalties for assaulting emergency well being care staff on the job, whether or not they’re within the discipline or an ER.
California might toughen penalties for interfering with reproductive well being care companies. Posting private info or images of a affected person or supplier can be a felony if certainly one of them is injured in consequence. AB 2099 additionally boosts penalties for intimidation or obstruction.
Below SB 53, gun homeowners must lock up their weapons in state-approved safes or lockboxes the place they might be inaccessible to anybody however the proprietor or one other lawfully approved consumer. Democratic Sen. Anthony Portantino, the invoice’s writer, says that will make it more durable for anybody, together with youngsters, to use weapons to hurt themselves or others or use the weapons to commit crimes. Critics say it could make it more durable to entry the weapon when it’s wanted, similar to to counter a house invasion. Relatedly, AB 2621 and AB 2917 tackle gun violence restraining orders.
Substance Use
The spike in drug overdoses has prompted a number of responses: AB 3073 would require the state’s public well being division to accomplice with native public well being companies, wastewater therapy amenities, and others to pilot wastewater testing for traces of harmful medication in an effort to pinpoint drug sizzling spots and establish new medication. AB 1976 would require office first-aid kits to incorporate naloxone nasal spray, which can reverse opioid overdoses. And senators have proposed at the very least 9 payments geared toward curbing overdose deaths, significantly from the lethal artificial opioid fentanyl.
Youth Welfare
Below AB 2229, backed by a “Know Your Interval” marketing campaign, faculty districts’ intercourse schooling curricula must embody menstrual well being. There was no registered opposition.
Public faculties must make free condoms accessible to all pupils in grades 9 to 12 underneath SB 954, which might assist forestall undesirable pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, in accordance with the writer, Democratic Sen. Caroline Menjivar. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the same invoice final yr.
Actuality present star Paris Hilton is backing a bipartisan invoice to require extra reporting on the therapy of youth in state-licensed short-term residential therapeutic packages. SB 1043 would require the state Division of Social Companies to publish info on using restraints and seclusion rooms on a public dashboard.
California would increase its regulation of hemp merchandise, which have turn out to be more and more widespread amongst youths as a strategy to bypass the state’s adults-only restrictions on authorized hashish. AB 2223 would construct on a 2021 legislation that Meeting member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry stated in hindsight didn’t go far sufficient.
Public faculties would, underneath AB 2316, typically be barred from offering meals containing pink dye 40, titanium dioxide, and different doubtlessly dangerous substances, that are presently utilized in merchandise together with Froot Loops and Flamin’ Scorching Cheetos. It’s Democratic Meeting member Jesse Gabriel’s follow-up to his laws final yr that tried to ban a chemical utilized in Skittles.
Ladies’s Well being
AB 2515 would ban the sale of menstrual merchandise with deliberately added PFAS, often known as “ceaselessly chemical substances.” PFAS, brief for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked to severe well being issues. Newsom vetoed a earlier try.
Public grade faculties and neighborhood faculties would, underneath AB 2901, have to supply 14 weeks of paid depart for pregnancies, miscarriages, childbirth, termination of pregnancies, or restoration. Newsom vetoed the same invoice in 2019.
AB 2319 would enhance enforcement of a 2019 legislation geared toward lowering the disproportionate charge of maternal mortality amongst Black girls and different pregnant girls of colour.
Social Media
Social media corporations might face substantial penalties in the event that they don’t do sufficient to guard youngsters, underneath AB 3172. The measure would permit monetary damages of as much as $1 million for every baby underneath age 18 who proves in courtroom they have been harmed, or 3 times the quantity of the kid’s precise damages. The trade opposes the invoice, calling it dangerous censorship.
Cyberbullies might face civil liabilities as much as $75,000 underneath SB 1504, and people damages might be sought by anybody. Below present legislation, damages are capped at $7,500 and could also be pursued solely by the state legal professional common.
Wellness
Bosses might be fined for repeatedly contacting workers after working hours underneath AB 2751, a “proper to disconnect” invoice patterned after comparable restrictions in 13 international locations. The invoice’s writer, Democratic Meeting member Matt Haney, stated regardless of the arrival of smartphones that “have blurred the boundaries between work and residential life,” workers shouldn’t be anticipated to work across the clock. The measure is opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce.
Lastly, Democrat Anthony Rendon, a long-serving state Meeting speaker, is spending his final yr within the chamber main a first-in-the-nation Choose Committee on Happiness and Public Coverage Outcomes. The committee isn’t planning any laws however intends to subject a report after lawmakers adjourn in August.
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