Department of Health Care Access and Information.

The bill was reformatted from a traditional chaptered legislative document (with page numbers, running headers like 'Ch. 398', and formal layout) to a web-based presentation on the California Legislature website, adding navigation elements, a version history dropdown, and site-wide UI components. No statutory language was altered.

The entire amendment to Section 128052 is removed. This section would have required the department's annual legislative report to include health care coverage trends for workers subject to waiting periods, recommend state policy to address coverage gaps, and grant the department regulatory authority to implement reporting requirements. Its removal narrows the bill to a single new reporting provision.

The reporting structure is now tiered. Facilities must first report whether ALL health care employees eligible for employer-sponsored coverage are eligible without a waiting period. Only if not all are eligible do they need to report which classifications are and are not eligible, along with waiting periods by classification.

A new subdivision (c) requires the department to provide reporting in specific date ranges: zero days, 1 to 14 days, 15 to 30 days, 31 to 60 days, 61 to 90 days, and more than 90 days.

Employee classifications are revised: 'fellows' added to physician interns and residents; 'orderlies' added to nursing aides; 'specialists' added to technicians; dietary staff and housekeeping/environmental services merged into 'environmental services and food staff'; 'managers' changed to 'management and supervision'; 'other employees' changed to 'all other employee classifications.'

A new definition of 'waiting period' is added: the number of days between the date of commencement of employment and the start date of employer-sponsored health care coverage eligibility.

Removed legislative process text including Assembly and Senate passage dates, Chief Clerk and Secretary of the Senate signature lines, and Governor's receipt date fields.

Added 'STATE OF CALIFORNIA AUTHENTICATED ELECTRONIC LEGAL MATERIAL' header and chapter designation (Chapter 398).

Reformatted page headers from 'AB 1418' to 'Ch. 398' and adjusted layout for the official chaptered publication format.

Added Governor approval date of October 6, 2025 and Secretary of State filing date of October 6, 2025.

New Section 127286 directly requires health facilities, clinics, home health agencies, and hospices to annually report which employee classifications are eligible for health care coverage at the start of employment without a waiting period, and which are not eligible along with their specific waiting periods. This is now a statutory mandate rather than something left to departmental rulemaking.

The new section specifies 13 employee classifications that must be reported: physicians, physician interns and residents, registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, nursing aides, medical assistants, home health aides, technicians, administrative and clerical staff, dietary staff, housekeeping and environmental services staff, managers, and other employees.

The definition of 'health facility' in the new Section 127286 excludes facilities within the meaning of subdivisions (e), (h), (j), or (m) of Section 1250, narrowing which entities are covered compared to the prior version that used the full Section 1250 definition without exclusions.

The bill now amends Section 128052 AND adds new Section 127286, rather than only amending Section 128052. The regulatory authority in 128052 is retained alongside the new direct statutory requirement, giving the department both a mandate to regulate and a pre-existing statutory reporting framework.

The new section requires the department to post the reported information on its internet website at least annually, creating a public transparency mechanism not present in the prior version.

The new section explicitly states it does not apply to health facilities, clinics, home health agencies, or hospices that are not already required to file reports with the department, creating an exemption for entities without existing reporting obligations.

The annual report requirement in Section 1(a)(5) was narrowed from covering health care coverage trends for 'employees in all sectors' to only 'health care workers in California.' This removes the broader workforce-wide coverage analysis and focuses the report exclusively on the health care sector.

Throughout the bill summary and operative text, references to 'employees' were changed to 'health care workers,' further clarifying that the bill's coverage-gap analysis applies only to the health care workforce rather than all workers.

New subdivision (c) requires the department to adopt regulations mandating that health facilities, clinics, home health agencies, and hospices submit annual reports (beginning after January 1, 2027) about whether their health care workers are subject to waiting periods before receiving employer-sponsored health care coverage.

New subdivision (c)(2) specifies minimum reporting content: whether workers are eligible for health care coverage at the start of employment, and which employee classes are not eligible along with the applicable waiting period.

New subdivision (d) requires the department to integrate the new facility reporting obligation with existing reports submitted to the department, to the extent feasible, in order to minimize additional burden on facilities.

New subdivision (e) adds definitions for 'health facility' (Section 1250), 'clinic' (Section 1200), 'home health agency' (Section 1727), and 'hospice' (Section 1746) by cross-reference to existing Health and Safety Code sections.

The annual report requirement in Section 128052(a)(5) was narrowed from tracking health care coverage trends for 'employees in California in all sectors' to specifically 'health care workers in California.'

The policy recommendation requirement in Section 128052(a)(6) was narrowed from addressing gaps in health care coverage for 'employees subject to waiting periods' to specifically 'health care workers subject to waiting periods before receiving employer-sponsored health care.'