California Major Risk Medical Insurance Program.

Existing law establishes the California Major Risk Medical Insurance Program (MRMIP) that is administered by the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB) to provide major risk medical coverage to residents who have been rejected for coverage by at least one private health plan, as specified. Existing law creates the Major Risk Medical Insurance Fund and continuously appropriates the fund to MRMIB for the purposes of MRMIP. Existing law requires MRMIB to establish program contribution amounts for each category of risk for each participating health plan and requires that these amounts be based on the average amount of subsidy funds required for the program as a whole, to be determined in a specified manner. Existing law authorizes participating health plans to charge subscriber contributions that do not exceed the difference between its plan rate and the program contribution amounts for a category of risk. Existing law requires the program to pay program contribution amounts to participating health plans from the Major Risk Medical Insurance Fund. This bill would, for the period commencing January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2013, inclusive, additionally authorize the program to further subsidize subscriber contributions based on a specified percentage of the standard average individual risk rate for comparable coverage, as specified. The bill would prohibit the amount of any subsidy provided to subscribers from affecting the calculation of premiums for certain products. Because the bill removes a restriction limiting the expenditure of money available under an existing appropriation from a continuously appropriated fund, the bill would make an appropriation. The bill would also provide that if regulations are adopted and readopted, those regulations by MRMIB to implement the changes made to MRMIP enacted by this bill are deemed to be an emergency and the bill would exempt MRMIB from describing facts showing the need for immediate action and from review by the Office of Administrative Law.