Legislative Updates, Reports | March 16, 2018

Assembly Select Committee Releases Final Report on Universal Coverage and Health Care Financing

The Assembly Select Committee on Health Care Delivery Systems and Universal Coverage this week released its final report after holding a series of hearings on the topic between October 2017 and February 2018. Recall last year, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelved SB 562 (Lara) which would have created a universal health care system in California and instead appointed a Select Committee to study the topic, identify the path forward for universal health coverage in California, and explore strategies for improving the state’s health care delivery system.

After convening a number of experts, scholars, and advocates in health care delivery systems, health policy, and financing, the Assembly Select Committee worked with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to assist in identifying and analyzing components of a sustainable and affordable universal health care system and to develop a report summarizing the Select Committee’s hearings and findings. The report covers major components of California’s health system, including:

  • Current sources of health care coverage, care, and payment
  • Challenges associated with uninsured and coverage gaps, access and delivery issues, and cost of care
  • Options to address coverage gaps, affordability barriers, and fragmentation of care
  • Considerations around health care financing and a unified publicly-financed approach

Ultimately, the plan explores and outlines short-term steps for California to improve coverage, affordability, access, fragmentation, and transparency that could be implemented over the next several years. The plan also details a longer-term roadmap for a broader transformation of California’s health care system through unified public financing.

A package of bills related to health care coverage access and affordability has been introduced by the Legislature in 2018, largely as a result of the Assembly Select Committee’s work and this report. The topic is highly likely to continue to garner significant attention in Sacramento and throughout the state as the Legislature attempts to determine the best path forward. The full Assembly Select Committee report is available here.