FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Sacramento, CA) The California Senior Legislature (CSL) adjourned its 42nd Annual Legislative Session and announced the Top State Legislative Proposals last week. Members will advocate diligently during the 2023 legislative session to have state lawmakers support these priorities.
The following were listed as the top ten State Legislative proposals:
AP-3: Hospitals: Patient Discharge Summary
(Senior Assembly Member Gene Dorio, Santa Clarita, CA)
This measure would enact legislation that would require a hospital to standardize the patient discharge summary, including specified information, in order to improve communication and provide continuity of medical care during the patient’s transition to the home or another facility.
AP-8: Transportation: Ambulance Services: Cost
(Senior Assembly Member Robin Clough, Santa Clarita, CA)
This measure would require a medical professional, upon patient arrival to a hospital emergency room, to make a determination on the emergency room record, such as by using a checkbox, regarding the medical need for the ambulance or ambulance transportation services, and if the ambulance or ambulance transportation services are determined to be warranted, the health care service plan shall pay for the ambulance or ambulance transportation services.
SP-3: Age Discrimination: Ageism Awareness Week
(Senior Assembly Member Karen Gorback, Thousand, CA)
This measure would directly address age discrimination, or ageism, and the adverse effects it continues to have on the economy and society due to the insufficiency of existing laws prohibiting age discrimination, and declare May 1, 2023, to May 7, 2023, inclusive, as “Ageism Awareness Week.”
AP-4: Public Transportation: Accessible Transportation Services: Seniors and Disabled Persons
(Senior Assembly Member Shirley Krohn, Walnut Creek, CA)
This measure would create the Accessible Transportation Account in the State Transportation Fund, establish a new Vehicle Registration Fee or Vehicle License Fee of no more than $10 per vehicle to fund the account, require moneys in the account to be used to fund accessible transportation services for seniors and disabled persons, and require funds in the account to be jointly administered at the state level by the California Health and Human Services Agency and the Department of Transportation, and at the local level by County Governments.
AP-1: Caregiving Grandparents: Support
(Senior Assembly Member Mark Cox, Yucaipa, CA)
This measure would request that the California Department of Aging, Department of Justice, and State Department of Social Services conduct a study to examine the problems that grandparents who are primary caregivers for their grandchildren experience.
SP-5: Homeless Senior and Disabled Veterans: Rental Assistance Program
(Senior Senator Ted Kagan, El Cajon, CA)
This measure would provide senior and disabled homeless Veterans with priority access to Veteran housing made available through Proposition 1 funding and to establish a Rental Assistance Program within the California Department of Veterans Affairs to coordinate access to affordable Veteran housing with existing State and Federal veterans services, including services related to mental health, substance abuse, and supplemental nutrition assistance, to reduce the number of senior and disabled homeless Veterans in this state.
SP-2: Caregiver and First Responder Communication with persons suffering from Dementia or other mental illness: State Card
(Former Senior Senator Allan Bortel, Tiburon, CA)
This measure would require an appropriate State Agency to create a card and a related poster based on the “Detect and Connect” card used within the County of Marin that contains information about how to communicate with a person suffering from Dementia or other mental illnesses and a list of telephone numbers to contact if elder abuse is suspected. The measure would recommend that $500,000 be appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Aging to distribute the card and poster to County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, nursing homes, residential care facilities for the elderly, hospitals, in-home supportive service workers, other caregivers, and first responders, such as paramedics, fire departments, and police departments, and to train these entities to properly explain and distribute the materials.
SP-6: Wildfires: Tax Credit
(Senior Senator Jan Lemucchi, Bakersfield, CA)
This measure would provide a tax credit for Older Californians for costs associated with fire-resistant improvements to their properties, impose a moratorium on the cancellation of fire insurance policies for Older Californians living in high-risk fire areas, as specified, and limit the increase in fire insurance premiums to once every 5 years and for no more than 25 percent per increase for Older Californians living in high-risk fire areas.
SP-7: Related to Domestic Services, As Described
(Senior Senator Helen Lopez, El Centro, CA)
This measure would amend the IHSS Program to request the issuance of an annual notice or statement for IHSS providers that is issued at the same time form W-2s are issued for other types of providers. The measure would require the annual notice or statement include the total earnings for the prior tax year to any IHSS provider who is not eligible to receive a form W-2. This measure would memorialize its action.
AP-6: Housing: Homeless Services: Training
(Senior Assembly Member Susan Mallett, Poway, CA)
This measure would require the Interagency Council on Homelessness to coordinate with the California Continuums of Care and the Area Agencies on Aging to partner in their shared regions to provide gerontological (age-related) training for Homelessness Service Staff with a purpose of ensuring Homelessness Service Providers are well trained and well equipped to assist vulnerable older adults with accessing resources to gain a permanent housing solution. The measure would also provide a total of two billion dollars ($2,000,000) of state funds for two additional five-year grant cycles for the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention Grant Program, as provided.
SP-1: Hazardous Substances: Paraquat Dichloride and Trichloroethylene
(Senior Senator Yvonne Baginski, Napa, CA)
This measure would ban the sale and use of Paraquat Dichloride and the use of Trichloroethylene as a vapor degreaser, a refrigerant, an extraction solvent, an intermediate chemical in the production of other chemical, and in any other manufacturing or industrial cleaning process or use in California.
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INFORMATION CONTACT:
For more information contact Janice Bailey, Executive Director, at (916) 552-8056 or jbailey@seniorleg.ca.gov.