California Legislators Debate Froot Loops and Free Condoms

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California state lawmakers this yr are persevering with their progressive tilt on well being coverage with dozens of proposals together with a ban on a Froot Loops ingredient and free condoms for prime schoolers.

As states more and more fracture alongside partisan traces, California Democrats are stamping their supermajority on laws that they may take into account till they adjourn on the finish of August. However the price of these proposals will probably be a significant factor given the enormity of the state’s deficit, at present estimated at between $38 billion and $73 billion.

Well being Protection

Lawmakers are once more contemplating whether or not to create a government-run, single-payer well being care system for all Californians. AB 2200 is Democratic Meeting member Ash Kalra’s second such try, after an analogous invoice failed in 2022. The value tag can be huge, although proponents say there would even be associated financial savings. The excessive potential price left Meeting Speaker Robert Rivas and others skeptical it might turn out to be legislation whereas the state faces a deficit.

AB 4 would require Coated California, the state’s medical health insurance change, to supply medical health insurance insurance policies to people who find themselves in any other case not in a position to acquire protection due to their immigration standing, to the extent it may beneath federal legislation. That would finally result in backed insurance coverage premiums just like these supplied in Colorado and Washington.

Medical Debt

Well being care suppliers and assortment companies can be barred from sharing sufferers’ medical debt with credit score reporting companies beneath SB 1061. The invoice would additionally prohibit credit score reporting companies from accepting, storing, or sharing any such data with out shopper consent. Final yr, the Biden administration introduced plans to develop federal guidelines barring unpaid medical payments from affecting sufferers’ credit score scores. California can be the third state to take away medical payments from shopper credit score reviews.

Medi-Cal

The Medi-Cal program, which gives well being take care of low-income folks, can be required to cowl medically supportive meals and vitamin beginning July 1, 2026, beneath AB 1975. The invoice builds on an present however restricted pilot program. The laws says Californians of shade may gain advantage from enough meals and vitamin to fight largely preventable continual well being circumstances, and it’s one among 14 measures sought by the California Legislative Black Caucus as a part of reparations for racial injustice.

Greater than 1.6 million California residents, disproportionately Latinos, have been kicked off Medi-Cal because the state resumed annual eligibility checks that had been halted through the covid-19 pandemic. AB 2956 would have the state search federal approval to sluggish these disenrollments by taking steps reminiscent of letting folks 19 and older preserve their protection routinely for 12 months.

Violence Prevention

A rise in assaults on well being staff is prompting lawmakers to think about boosting legal penalties. In California, easy assault in opposition to staff inside an ER is taken into account the identical as easy assault in opposition to nearly anybody else, and carries a most punishment of a $1,000 positive and 6 months in jail. In distinction, easy assault in opposition to emergency medical staff within the area, reminiscent of an EMT responding to a 911 name, carries most penalties of a $2,000 positive and a yr in jail. AB 977 would set the identical most penalties for assaulting emergency well being care staff on the job, whether or not they’re within the area or an ER.

California might toughen penalties for interfering with reproductive well being care providers. Posting private data or pictures of a affected person or supplier can be a felony if one among them is injured in consequence. AB 2099 additionally boosts penalties for intimidation or obstruction.

Below SB 53, gun homeowners must lock up their weapons in state-approved safes or lockboxes the place they might be inaccessible to anybody however the proprietor or one other lawfully licensed person. Democratic Sen. Anthony Portantino, the invoice’s creator, says that may make it more durable for anybody, together with kids, to make use of weapons to hurt themselves or others or use the weapons to commit crimes. Critics say it will make it tougher to entry the weapon when it’s wanted, reminiscent of to counter a house invasion. Relatedly, AB 2621 and AB 2917 tackle gun violence restraining orders.

Substance Use

The spike in drug overdoses has prompted a number of responses: AB 3073 would require the state’s public well being division to associate with native public well being companies, wastewater therapy services, and others to pilot wastewater testing for traces of harmful medication in an effort to pinpoint drug sizzling spots and determine new medication. AB 1976 would require office first-aid kits to incorporate naloxone nasal spray, which may reverse opioid overdoses. And senators have proposed a minimum of 9 payments geared toward curbing overdose deaths, notably from the lethal artificial opioid fentanyl.

Youth Welfare

Below AB 2229, backed by a “Know Your Interval” marketing campaign, faculty districts’ intercourse training curricula must embody menstrual well being. There was no registered opposition.

Public colleges must make free condoms out there to all pupils in grades 9 to 12 beneath SB 954, which might assist forestall undesirable pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, based on the creator, Democratic Sen. Caroline Menjivar. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed an analogous invoice final yr.

Actuality present star Paris Hilton is backing a bipartisan invoice to require extra reporting on the therapy of youth in state-licensed short-term residential therapeutic applications. SB 1043 would require the state Division of Social Companies to put up data on using restraints and seclusion rooms on a public dashboard.

California would broaden its regulation of hemp merchandise, which have turn out to be more and more in style amongst youths as a solution to bypass the state’s adults-only restrictions on authorized hashish. AB 2223 would construct on a 2021 legislation that Meeting member Cecilia Aguiar-Curry mentioned in hindsight didn’t go far sufficient.

Public colleges would, beneath AB 2316, usually be barred from offering meals containing purple dye 40, titanium dioxide, and different probably dangerous substances, that are at present utilized in merchandise together with Froot Loops and Flamin’ Scorching Cheetos. It’s Democratic Meeting member Jesse Gabriel’s follow-up to his laws final yr that tried to ban a chemical utilized in Skittles.

Girls’s Well being

AB 2515 would ban the sale of menstrual merchandise with deliberately added PFAS, also referred to as “perpetually chemical substances.” PFAS, brief for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked to severe well being issues. Newsom vetoed a earlier try.

Public grade colleges and group faculties would, beneath AB 2901, have to offer 14 weeks of paid go away for pregnancies, miscarriages, childbirth, termination of pregnancies, or restoration. Newsom vetoed an analogous invoice in 2019.

AB 2319 would enhance enforcement of a 2019 legislation geared toward decreasing the disproportionate fee of maternal mortality amongst Black ladies and different pregnant ladies of shade.

Social Media

Social media corporations might face substantial penalties in the event that they don’t do sufficient to guard kids, beneath AB 3172. The measure would permit monetary damages of as much as $1 million for every little one beneath age 18 who proves in courtroom they had been harmed, or thrice the quantity of the kid’s precise damages. The business opposes the invoice, calling it dangerous censorship.

Cyberbullies might face civil liabilities as much as $75,000 beneath SB 1504, and people damages may very well be sought by anybody. Below present legislation, damages are capped at $7,500 and could also be pursued solely by the state legal professional common.

Wellness

Bosses may very well be fined for repeatedly contacting staff after working hours beneath AB 2751, a “proper to disconnect” invoice patterned after comparable restrictions in 13 international locations. The invoice’s creator, Democratic Meeting member Matt Haney, mentioned regardless of the arrival of smartphones that “have blurred the boundaries between work and residential life,” staff shouldn’t be anticipated to work across the clock. The measure is opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce.

Lastly, Democrat Anthony Rendon, a long-serving state Meeting speaker, is spending his final yr within the chamber main a first-in-the-nation Choose Committee on Happiness and Public Coverage Outcomes. The committee isn’t planning any laws however intends to difficulty a report after lawmakers adjourn in August.

This text was produced by KFF Well being Information, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially impartial service of the California Well being Care Basis.