Health Law Legislative Update 2020

• Publication year: 2020
• Author: H. Thomas Watson

Health Law Legislative Update 2020

H. Thomas Watson

H. Thomas Watson is a partner at Horvitz & Levy LLP. He is a California State Bar Certified Appellate Specialist and the former chair of the State Bar's Health Law Committee. He has authored numerous articles on health law and damages issues, and is a frequent lecturer on these topics.

Introduction

Governor Newsom signaled his interest in the health care sector when signing off on a number of bills that affect providers and consumers in California, and in some instances even negotiated for changes in bills passed by the Legislature before he would sign certain the bills. Those bills range from bills that address hotly contested issues that have raised the ire of anti-vaccine activists, to those intended to lower prescription costs, provide access to medicinal cannabis for severely disabled students on school sites, provide expanded access to HIV prevention and prophylaxis drugs, penalize Californians who do not purchase health insurance, provide Medi-Cal coverage for young immigrants, set limits on premium assistance programs for dialysis treatment and profits for dialysis providers, and make small but important changes to the State CURES program and providers who must use it. There are also a number of bills that affect, but are not limited to, the health care sector, such as a law that implements a test that differentiates between employees and independent contractors and a series of Data Privacy Protection laws that will affect all sectors of the economy, including healthcare. For ease of reference, we have grouped the bills into different topic headings.

HIV Prevention and Prophylaxis

As a result of Senate Bill No. 159, 2019-2020 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2019) (Sen. Scott Weiner D-San Francisco), California is the first state to allow people to access HIV prevention drugs from pharmacies without a doctor's prescription. The bill authorizes pharmacies to dispense a sixty-day pre-exposure supply of prophylaxis ("PrEP"), which is a once a day pill for HIV-negative people that may keep them from becoming infected with HIV, and a twenty-eight-day supply of post-exposure prophylaxis ("PEP") for individuals who have been exposed to HIV. The bill also prevents insurance companies from requiring prior authorization for such medications.

(The bill amends Business and Professions Code section 4052 and Welfare and Institutions Code section 14132.968, and adds Business and Professions Code sections 4052.02 and 4052.03, Health and Safety Code section 1342.74, and Insurance Code section 10123.1933.)

Medical Marijuana on School Grounds

While medicinal and recreational marijuana is legal in California, the use of cannabis has always been prohibited within 1,000 feet of a school ground. Senate Bill No. 223, 2019-2020 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2019), authored by Senator Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) enacts a new law called Jojo's Act, which authorizes school boards to adopt policies allowing parents or guardians of students with severe medical and developmental disabilities who take medicinal cannabis as part of their medication regime to administer medicinal cannabis to those students on school campuses, as long as the route of administration is not smoking or vaping. The bill means that severely disabled students who take medicinal cannabis are now better able to attend school. The bill includes strict requirements for implementation of such a policy, including the following:

• The student is a qualified patient with a valid written medical recommendation for medicinal cannabis, and the student's parent or guardian provides a copy of the recommendation to the school to keep on file.
• The student's medicinal cannabis is administered in a non-smokable and non-vapable form. Typically, medicinal cannabis for children is administered as oil, capsules, tinctures, liquids, or topical creams that do not have the psychoactive effects of recreational marijuana.
• The medicinal cannabis is not stored on campus.
• The parent or guardian signs in when coming on campus to administer the medicinal cannabis, in a manner that does not disrupt the educational environment or expose other students to medicinal cannabis.

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The bill does not permit students to self-administer the cannabis. In enacting this law, California joins eight states—Washington, Colorado, Florida, Maine, New Jersey, Delaware, Illinois, and New Mexico—that already allow medicinal cannabis to be used at K-12 schools. (The bill enacts Education Code section 49414.1.)

Telehealth

Assemb. Bill No. 744

As a means of encouraging expanded access to health care, the Governor signed a number of bills encouraging the use of telehealth for access to medical providers by video or other electronic means where the provider can see and talk to the patient long distance via electronic equipment or video in real time. One example of those bills is Assembly Bill No. 744, 2019-2020 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2019), which provides that all contracts between a health care provider and a health care service plan or health insurer that are issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2021, must reimburse providers for services provided via telehealth to the same extent that the plan or insurer would pay for in-person services; prohibits plans and insurers from limiting coverage for telehealth services to...