Technology NEWS; – The California Legislature is currently engaged in its often hectic final week, striving to pass legislation before the Saturday deadline.
On Monday, legislators executed some last-minute strategies to extend the timeframe for floor amendments (originally due last Friday) for five bills, which include topics such as paid family leave, the mental competency of defendants, and environmental assessments of hydrogen production facilities.
While there will be instances of late-night sessions due to floor votes, there will also be considerable periods of “hurry up and wait.”
Numerous other bills did not progress to this stage. One contributing factor identified by legislators and advocates is the inflated cost estimates provided by Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration, which can result in bills being stalled in the appropriations committees.
As reported by CalMatters Digital Democracy journalist Ryan Sabalow and health reporter Jocelyn Wiener, earlier this month, four healthcare bills were rejected by the committees due to dubious cost projections.
For example, the Department of Managed Health Care indicated that a bill mandating automatic reviews when health insurers deny mental health treatment to minors would incur a cost of $87 million annually by 2028. The Department of Insurance added an estimated annual cost of $1.2 million. Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco and the bill’s sponsor, criticized these estimates as “outrageous,” noting that no explanation was provided regarding how the departments calculated their figures.
In a statement, a representative from Newsom’s Health and Human Services Agency refuted the claim that cost estimates are “artificially inflated,” labeling it as “outrageous and inaccurate.”
However, inflating costs to facilitate the rejection of bills can serve as a significant political advantage for any governor, according to Mike Gatto, a former chair of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. This approach allows the committees to absorb the criticism, he explained.
For further insights into bill cost estimates, refer to the article by Ryan and Jocelyn. Now, let us turn our attention to the bills that remain active: Medical debt: CalMatters health reporter Ana B. Ibarra provides an overview.
