Health care coverage.

Existing federal law, the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) , enacts various health care coverage market reforms that take effect with respect to plan years on or after January 1, 2014. Among other things, PPACA 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 that coverage and to renew that coverage at the option of the plan sponsor or the individual. PPACA prohibits a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage from imposing any preexisting condition exclusion with respect to that plan or coverage. PPACA allows the premium rate charged by a health insurance issuer offering small group or individual coverage to vary only by family composition, rating area, age, and tobacco use and prohibits discrimination against individuals based on health status, as specified. PPACA specifies that certain of these provisions do not apply to grandfathered health plans, as defined. Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the 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 provides for the regulation of health care service plans and health insurers that offer health benefit plans to small employers with regard to eligible employees, as defined. Existing law requires a plan or insurer to offer, market, and sell all of its small employer health benefit plans to all small employers in each service area in which the plan provides or arranges for the provisions of health care services and provides certain limits on the rates for these plans. Existing law prohibits a group health benefit plan from excluding coverage for an individual on the basis of a preexisting condition provision for a period greater than 6 months, except as specified. This bill would prohibit a health care service plan contract or health insurance policy, on or after January 1, 2014, from imposing any preexisting condition provision upon any individual, except as specified. The bill would also enact provisions that apply to nongrandfathered and grandfathered plans with respect to plan years on or after January 1, 2014, consistent with PPACA. Among other things, the bill would require a plan or insurer, on and after October 1, 2013, to offer, market, and sell all of the plan's or insurer's nongrandfathered plans that are sold in the small group market to all small employers in each service area in which the plan provides or arranges for the provision of health care services. The bill would require nongrandfathered plans to provide open enrollment periods consistent with federal law and special enrollment periods and coverage effective dates consistent with the individual nongrandfathered market and would authorize plans and insurers to use only age, geographic region, and whether the plan covers an individual or family for purposes of establishing rates for nongrandfathered small employer plans, as specified. The bill would enact other related provisions and make related conforming changes. The bill would authorize the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance to adopt emergency regulations implementing the bill's provisions regarding grandfathered plans by August 31, 2013, as specified. The bill would make certain of these provisions inoperative if the corresponding provisions of PPACA are repealed and would make other related conforming changes. The bill would require plans and insurers to report to the departments the number of enrollees and covered lives that receive coverage under specified contracts or policies, and would require the departments to post that information on their Internet Web sites. Because a willful violation of the bill's provisions relative to health care service plans would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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.