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California lawmakers have been introducing legislation that would replicate key pieces of the federal law, including bills defining benefits and guaranteeing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Photo: iStockphoto.com
From: All Things Considered | By Pauline Bartolone, Capital Public Radio
Many states have done nothing to implement the health overhaul law, saying they’ll wait to see how the Supreme Court rules.
Not California.
The country’s most populous state got out in front first on implementing the law, and it hasn’t slowed down in recent weeks as the rest of the country waits to hear from the high court.
“California has been moving ahead 100 percent assuming it will upheld,” says Peter Lee, who left his Washington job as a health policy official in the Obama administration to lead California’s Health Benefit Exchange. “We [aren't] doing anything in the way of contingency planning because it makes no sense to plan for what seems like an outer bounds of possibility, and rather, we’ve got a big job to do to get ready to cover what will be millions of Californians in 18 months.”
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