BILL NUMBER: SB 351INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Senator Hernandez FEBRUARY 20, 2013 An act relating to health care coverage. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SB 351, as introduced, Hernandez. Health care coverage: emergency care. Existing federal law, the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), enacts various health care coverage market reforms that take effect January 1, 2014. Among other things, PPACA generally prohibits a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage from establishing lifetime limits or annual limits on the dollar value of benefits for any participant or beneficiary. Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law also provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires health insurers annually to submit to the Department of Insurance a summary explanation of any lifetime and annual maximums for health benefits offered pursuant to specified provisions of law. This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would establish limits on out-of-network hospital emergency care billing practices. Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: SECTION 1. It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to establish limits on out-of-network hospital emergency care billing practices.