Medi-Cal: demonstration project.

Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income persons receive health care benefits. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid provisions. Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal Hospital/Uninsured Care Demonstration Project Act that revises hospital reimbursement methodologies in order to maximize the use of federal funds consistent with federal Medicaid law and stabilize the distribution of funding for hospitals. Existing law requires the department to submit an application to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for a waiver or demonstration project that would implement specified objectives. Existing law requires the department to submit the waiver or demonstration project application to the CMS by a date that allows sufficient time for the waiver or demonstration project to be approved by no later than September 1, 2010, or the conclusion of any extension period granted in the demonstration project set forth in the Medi-Cal Hospital/Uninsured Care Demonstration Project Act, whichever happens last. This bill would, to the extent necessary to continue the implementation of the Medi-Cal Hospital/Uninsured Care Demonstration Project Act, require the department to submit to CMS, by September 1, 2010, an application for a waiver or a demonstration project. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.