If submitting electronically via email (recommended), please copy the text below, and we encourage you to add your personal stories and perspective to it. If submitting by fax you can DOWNLOAD A WORD FILE to edit and print out. The Honorable Gavin NewsomGovernor, State of California1021 O Street, Suite 9000Sacramento, CA 95814 Submitted via email to leg.unit@gov.ca.gov Re: AB 1502 (Muratsuchi & Wood) – Request for Veto Dear Governor Newsom: Please veto AB 1502. The bill was intended to provide long overdue reform to California’s nursing home change of ownership system but, due to hundreds of amendments imposed by the California Department of Public Health, it only entrenches our awful status quo. The amendments: stripped crucial suitability standards, inviting our worst operators to expand their nursing home chains; limited the state’s vetting process to “applicants,” and will not include the owners at the top of the chains; and replaced strong enforcement measures to prevent unlawful nursing home operations with discretionary, weak enforcement that invites non-compliance.
AB-1502 Fact Sheet
CANHR was the bill’s sponsor and worked diligently to secure its passage. Unfortunately the recent extensive amendments eviscerate the bill and will harm nursing home residents.
AB 1502 (Muratsuchi and Wood): Skilled Nursing Facility Ownership and Management Reform
CANHR was the bill’s sponsor and worked diligently to secure its passage. Unfortunately the recent extensive amendments eviscerate the bill and will harm nursing home residents. Status: On Governor’s Desk Read the Bill Download Opposition Fact Sheet Read CANHR Oppose Letter Read CANHR Letter to Governor asking to veto this Bill Please Write to the Governor Opposing This Bill: See Sample Oppose Letter
AB 1320 (Jones): Life Insurance – Nonpayment Premium Notice
This bill would eliminate consumer protections for everyone who purchased life insurance prior to January 1, 2013, and would disproportionately impact seniors and the disabled for whom the existing laws were designed to protect. These existing protections seek to address the historical problem of life insurance policies of elders and the disabled lapsing due to cognitive impairment, infirmity, or death. SB 1320 would eliminate these protections.
SB 1323 (Archuleta): Foreclosure Equity Sale
California’s foreclosure process legitimizes the large-scale extraction of billions of dollars of wealth from low-income communities. When a homeowner can’t pay back their mortgage loan, the lender often sells the property at an auction, takes back the loan’s remaining balance, and the homeowner receives any surplus funds from the sale. As properties at auction sell for far below value, the defaulted homeowner often loses tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of accrued home equity.
AB 2079 (Wood): Skilled Nursing Facility Direct Care Spending Requirement
This bill requires nursing homes to spend at least 85 percent of their revenues on the direct care of residents. This ensures the billions of dollars we pay to nursing homes as taxpayers is actually spent on the residents and not to pad the profits of already very rich owners. Status: In Senate. From committee chair, with author’s amendments: Amend, and re-refer to committee.
AB 2823 (Levine and Wood): Home Upkeep Allowance
Individuals on Medi-Cal living in a nursing home may qualify for a little-known Medi-Cal deduction called the Home Upkeep Allowance (HUA). Right now, the HUA allows a person to keep an additional $209 a month of their income to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of their home while they are temporarily residing in the nursing home.
AB 1900 (Arambula): Increase Maintenance Need Income Levels
The Medi-Cal share of cost program extends Medi-Cal eligibility to low-income older adults and people with disabilities who have significant health care needs but are just above the free Medi-Cal income limit. The share of cost program acts as a critical pathway to health care coverage, but outdated income limits force people to spend more than half of their income on health care needs every month.
AB 1663 (Maienschein): The Probate Conservatorship Reform and Supported Decision-Making Act
Background: The Britney Spears conservatorship case exposed deep flaws within California’s probate conservatorship system – demonstrating how easily people can become trapped in a conservatorship and how difficult it is to escape. People with disabilities and older adults are often caught in the pipeline to conservatorship, a system that strips them of basic civil rights and their ability to advocate for themselves.
AB 1809 (Aguiar-Curry): Nursing Facility Resident Informed Consent Protection Act of 2022
Despite dangerous side effects, condemnation by care providers, and a decade-long national and state campaign to reduce the inappropriate use of psychotropic drugs in nursing homes, over half of California nursing home residents are being given psychotropic drugs, typically without informed consent. AB 1809 would codify and expand existing informed consent rules to ensure nursing home residents are given important information about drugs that are prescribed for them and an opportunity to consent or withhold consent.
OPPOSE AB-1502
CANHR was the bill’s sponsor and worked diligently to secure its passage. Unfortunately the recent extensive amendments eviscerate the bill and will harm nursing home residents.
Support AB-2823: Senate Health Committee
Individuals on Medi-Cal living in a nursing home may qualify for a little-known Medi-Cal deduction called the Home Upkeep Allowance (HUA). Right now, the HUA allows a person to keep an additional $209 a month of their income to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of their home while they are temporarily residing in the nursing home.
AB-2823 Fact Sheet
Individuals on Medi-Cal living in a nursing home may qualify for a little-known Medi-Cal deduction called the Home Upkeep Allowance (HUA). Right now, the HUA allows a person to keep an additional $209 a month of their income to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of their home while they are temporarily residing in the nursing home.
AB 2546 Sample Support Letter
If submitting electronically, please copy the text below, and we encourage you to add your personal stories and perspective to it. If submitting by mail you can DOWNLOAD A WORD FILE to edit and print out. Your support letter can be uploaded using the Position Letter Portal at https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/. You will have to create an account if you do not already have one.
Support AB-2546: Chairperson Nazarian
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on residents of long-term care facilities. In addition to virus-caused sickness and death, residents have suffered severe loss from government-imposed visitation lockouts that separated residents from their families, friends, and other essential support persons. AB 2546 gives every resident of a nursing home or assisted living facility the right to in-person, onsite, and unscheduled access to a minimum of two resident-designated support persons during any public health emergency in which residents’ normal visitation rights are curtailed.
AB-2546 Fact Sheet
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on residents of long-term care facilities. In addition to virus-caused sickness and death, residents have suffered severe loss from government-imposed visitation lockouts that separated residents from their families, friends, and other essential support persons. AB 2546 gives every resident of a nursing home or assisted living facility the right to in-person, onsite, and unscheduled access to a minimum of two resident-designated support persons during any public health emergency in which residents’ normal visitation rights are curtailed.
OPPOSE SB-1320
This bill would eliminate consumer protections for everyone who purchased life insurance prior to January 1, 2013, and would disproportionately impact seniors and the disabled for whom the existing laws were designed to protect. These existing protections seek to address the historical problem of life insurance policies of elders and the disabled lapsing due to cognitive impairment, infirmity, or death.
AB 1809 Sample Support Letter
If submitting electronically, please copy the text below, and we encourage you to add your personal stories and perspective to it. If submitting by mail you can DOWNLOAD A WORD FILE to edit and print out. Your support letter can be uploaded using the Position Letter Portal at https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/. You will have to create an account if you do not already have one. Assemblymember Jim WoodChair, Assembly Health CommitteeAssembly Health Committee1020 N Street, Room 390Sacramento, California 95814 sent via CA Legislature Position Letter Portal RE: AB 1809 (Aguiar-Curry) – Support Dear Chairperson Wood: I write to you in support of AB 1809, a very important bill to protect nursing facility residents from the excessive use of psychotropic drugs.
AB-1663 Fact Sheet
Background: The Britney Spears conservatorship case exposed deep flaws within California’s probate conservatorship system – demonstrating how easily people can become trapped in a conservatorship and how difficult it is to escape. People with disabilities and older adults are often caught in the pipeline to conservatorship, a system that strips them of basic civil rights and their ability to advocate for themselves.