Supported California Legislation
California Nurses Association is committed to building a broad movement for transformative social change and confronting the powerful interests that dominate our economic and political system. We are proud to support legislation that reflects nurses’ values of caring, compassion, and community. Learn more about all our current supported California legislation.
S.B. 1015 Transparency and Standards in Nursing Education Clinical Placements
Clinical education is an essential part of pre-licensure nursing education programs and helps ensure clinical competency of entry-level RNs. However, a growing number of nursing education programs have had increasing difficulty in accessing clinical education placements for their students at clinical sites. This is sometimes referred to as clinical impaction.
S.B. 1015 would take the first steps to address the issue of nursing education clinical impaction. The bill codifies additional transparency requirements on clinical placements and initiates the process of developing clinical placement standards for California’s nursing education programs.
S.B. 1061 Remove Medical Debt From Credit Reports
Nurses have long witnessed patients delay or forgo receiving the care they need because of medical debt. Nearly 4 in 10 Californians (38 percent) report having medical debt. But Californians with medical debt are twice (78 percent) as likely to skip care due to costs than those without medical debt (38 percent). For low-income Californians, more than half report that they postponed health care due to cost concerns.
To ensure that our patients get the care they need, nurses know that California must remove all medical debt from credit reports. S.B. 1061 would end this destructive practice by prohibiting consumer reporting agencies from including medical debt on credit reports.
A.B. 1001 Hospital Standards for Behavioral Health Emergency Services
A significant portion of patients with behavioral health care needs — including mental health and substance use considerations — enter California hospitals each year. In 2020, patients with behavioral health diagnoses represented one third of all inpatient hospitalizations and one fifth of all emergency department visits.
California must create hospital standards to ensure that hospitals have appropriate staff available and trained to respond to patients who may experience behavioral health emergencies. Additionally, California can create hospital standards to ensure timely treatment, admissions, and transfers of emergency department or observation unit patients with behavioral health needs. The state can also establish a fund to support state or county programs to hire and train psychiatric nurses or other psychiatric health care professionals who can respond to behavioral health emergencies within a hospital. Dedicating appropriately trained and licensed hospital staff to respond to behavioral health emergencies would help address the immediate care needs of hospital patients with behavioral health needs and would help address rising rates of workplace violence in emergency departments.
A.B. 2200 California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act (CalCare)
Today’s U.S. health care system is a complex, fragmented multi-payer system that still leaves wide gaps of coverage and poses significant issues of affordability.
The California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act sets in motion a single-payer health care coverage system in California, called CalCare, for all residents, regardless of citizenship status. By streamlining payments and lowering per-capita health care spending, CalCare guarantees quality health care and long-term care without creating barriers to care or out-of-pocket costs.
