Hospital Cost/ SB 610 /AB 1399

You may have seen the recent news about the reduction in uncompensated care in hospitals.  According to a report released last week, hospital uncompensated care costs will be $5.7 billion lower in 2014 — a 16% reduction.  This is due primarily to the reduction in the number of uninsured patients, which is the result of Medicaid expansion and subsidized coverage in the exchanges. The savings are largest in the states that have chosen to expand their Medicaid coverage.  In the Medicaid expansion states of which California is one calling it Medi Cal there is a 25% reduction in baseline uncompensated care spending.  In the non-expansion states, the reduction is 9%.   Hopefully this will have an effect on health insurance cost in the future.

Some bad news on the legislative front.

SB 610 which would have leveled the playing field for Franchisees in contract negotiations with Franchisors was vetoed by the Governor yesterday. He cited that the bill was polarizing and the standard of material and substantial was untested while the current standard of good faith has been well tested. Needless to say we disagree and will be considering doing something on this next session.

AB 1399. Which would have put in effect a California New Markets credit similar to the Federal governments. He said the cost of $200 million was significant. While we agree $200 million  is significant

there are offsets that could have been made.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188