Medi-Cal: quality assurance fee revenue.

Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which basic health care services are provided to qualified low-income persons. The Medi-Cal program is partially governed and funded as part of the federal Medicaid Program. AB 1383 of the 2009–10 Regular Session of the Legislature, which becomes effective January 1, 2010, requires the department to make supplemental payments for certain services, as specified, to private hospitals, nondesignated public hospitals, and designated public hospitals, as defined, for subject federal fiscal years. These provisions in AB 1383 are subject to federal approval and also impose, as a condition of participation in state-funded health insurance programs other than the Medi-Cal program, a quality assurance fee, as specified, on certain general acute care hospitals through and including December 31, 2010. The provisions create the Hospital Quality Assurance Revenue Fund in the State Treasury and require that the money collected from the quality assurance fee be deposited into the fund. The provisions provide that the moneys in the fund shall, upon appropriation by the Legislature, be available only for certain purposes, including providing the above-described supplemental payments to hospitals and health care coverage for children. This bill would appropriate $1,000,000 from the Private Hospital Supplemental Fund and $1,000,000 from the Federal Trust Fund to the department to pay the department's staffing and administrative costs associated with the provisions of AB 1383, including costs of workload associated with seeking the necessary federal approvals to implement those provisions. The bill would also appropriate $13,500,000,000 from the Hospital Quality Assurance Revenue Fund to the department for the purposes prescribed by AB 1383 to be available for expenditure until January 1, 2013. If the department obtains federal approval, the bill would require the department to use the money in the Hospital Quality Assurance Revenue Fund to reimburse $1,000,000 to the Private Hospital Supplemental Fund. If the department does not obtain federal approval, the bill would require any unexpended moneys from the $1,000,000 appropriated to the department from the Private Hospital Supplemental Fund pursuant to this bill to revert to the Private Hospital Supplemental Fund. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.