Health care coverage: federal health care reforms.

(1) Existing federal law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) , enacts various health care market reforms. Among other things, PPACA requires applicable individuals to maintain minimum essential coverage, and imposes a shared responsibility penalty on an applicable individual who does not maintain minimum essential coverage. This provision is referred to as the individual mandate. PPACA prohibits a nongrandfathered health benefit plan from imposing a preexisting condition provision on an individual and requires a nongrandfathered health benefit plan to include coverage for essential health benefits, as defined. PPACA also includes a coverage guarantee that requires each health insurance issuer that offers health insurance coverage in the individual or group market in a state to accept every employer and individual in the state that applies for coverage, and prohibits discriminatory premium rates, as specified. Existing state law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care, and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires the above-described federal health care coverage market reforms to apply to a health care service plan or health insurer, but conditions the operation of certain of these market reforms on the continued operation of PPACA or certain of its requirements. This bill would delete the conditional operation of the above-described provisions based on the continued operation of PPACA, the federal individual mandate, the federal coverage guarantee, and federal essential health benefits coverage requirements. By indefinitely extending the operation of these provisions, and thus indefinitely extending the applicability of a crime for a willful violation by a health care service plan, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 1357.503 of the Health and Safety Code and Section 107530.5 of the Insurance Code proposed by SB 255 and SB 718 to be operative only if this bill and SB 255 and SB 718, or both, are enacted and this bill is enacted last. (3) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.