California: Unions Take Fire at Bill to Revamp California Health Care Oversight

The bill discussed is about reforming the current extremely ineffective system.

Among the proposed reforms are safeguards that would bring California in line with other states, such as requiring that employers report workers who are fired or suspended for serious wrongdoing and allowing a top state official to quickly suspend workers who pose a threat to the public.

... union officials say they support many elements of the bill, including efforts to speed up the disciplinary process and give the nursing board the power to hire its own investigators. They also raise no opposition to new rules that would bar convicted sex offenders from holding licenses and suspend the licenses of incarcerated practitioners.

Unions have taken particular aim at the mandatory reporting requirement, which would oblige employers to notify regulators when workers have been fired or suspended for serious problems such as drug abuse, gross negligence, physically harming a patient or sexual wrongdoing.

The unions and professional associations also object to a plan that could close state-run recovery programs for substance abusing health professionals. Currently, some addicted caregivers can avoid license sanctions by taking part in a confidential "diversion" program of drug testing, treatment and restrictions on their practice.

ProPublica and the Times detailed last summer how the program for addicted nurses was largely unsuccessful and had failed to quickly take action when nurses flunked out and were internally labeled "public safety threats."

The California Nurses Association Political Action Committee ... doled out more than $300,000 in the first three months of this year, on top of $359,000 last year and $1.3 million in 2008, according to filings with the state.

Many of the provisions that unions object to would alter a system that state officials say has protected the interests of health workers more than the public. These changes include giving the director of the Consumer Affairs Department the power to temporarily suspend the licenses of professionals who pose a threat to the public.

See Unions Take Fire at Bill to Revamp California Health Care Oversight by Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein, April 16, 2010.