Health Insurance Laws in California

The prices of medical treatments, medicines and therapies are forever and as usual skyrocketing. The kind of work culture and busy schedules that a person follows is what creates lot of stress in the life of an individual. Improper lifestyles, environmental conditions, lack of exercise, stress and genetic disorders are some of the few factors that lead to sickness and physical disorders.

Most of the people just think that a medical insurance is simply a waste of all the hard earned money that one earns, while some don’t even know the advantages of a good medical policy. The health insurance laws of each state differ from each other, that is mainly to regulate the practices of the insurance provider of each state. California’s health insurance laws are really strict and it is compulsory for each and everyone to have at least some form of insurance policy.

There are many healthy insurance acts that make it compulsory for employers to provide insurance to their employees, if there are more than a particular number of workers. But some employees don’t accept these plans rather then go in for COBRA plan (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) to get benefits for the people who loose their plans. This plan is costlier than the group health insurance plan, but much cheaper than the individual health insurance plan, this plan also covers retirees. The COBRA plan was passed by the Congress.

There has been a considerable amount of increase in the number of uninsured people in California because of the great immigration flow into the state. And because of this the California Health Insurance Act was passed in 2003 to provide health insurance coverage to as many employees as possible and also for their family members.
And in 2005 to provide the people in that state with cheap health insurance coverage, the California Health Insurance Reliability Act, (CHIRA) was passed. This helped a lot of people from the lower-income groups. And in 1996 The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by the California state to see that in case of termination or change of job, the employee’s and their families insurance coverage still remains intact.

All the important information regarding health insurance laws of California are provided to the common people by the State Health Department of California.