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New Health Care Guides in California and Updates on Health Care Bills

June 20, 2008
The Actors Fund recently published health care guides for Los Angeles and San Francisco/Oakland with plans to produce similar guides for Orange County, Sacramento, San Jose, and San Diego by the end of 2008. These guides provide thorough explanations of health care options in each area and answer common questions specifically geared towards artists. These booklets are especially exciting because they offer a standardized and accessible information source for artists. The Actors Fund also manages The Health Insurance Resource Center’s website (HIRC), which lists additional health care resources available to artists. The aim of HIRC is to reduce the number of uninsured artists and expand access to quality, affordable health care.

In addition, since the last Artists United for Healthcare news update, Senate Bill 1522 (Senator Darrell Steinberg, Sacramento), which would regulate the individual insurance market, passed the Assembly Health Committee on a party line vote on Wednesday, June 18th. This bill is will now head to the Senate Health Committee. SB 1522 is a particularly exciting bill for artists as it would categorize all health plans offered on the individual market into five tiers so that consumers could compare health plans better. This model will also encourage direct competition between insurance providers based on price and quality.

It is also important to note that Assembly Bill 1945 (Assemblyman Hector De La Torre), which would create an independent review process when an insurer wishes to rescind a consumer’s health insurance policy, passed on a bipartisan vote on Wednesday. Assembly Bill 2967 (Assemblywoman Sally Leiber), also passed on Wednesday. This bill would provide greater transparency and disclosure for health care purchasers. Both AB 1945 and AB 2967 represent important steps towards greater regulation of the health care industry.