(1) 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 provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance to adopt regulations establishing standards and requirements for health care service plans and health insurers to provide enrollees and insureds with appropriate access to language assistance in obtaining health care services, including requirements for individual access to interpretation services and requirements to conduct an assessment of the language preferences and linguistic needs of the enrollee and insured population and for the translation of vital documents. For those vital documents that are not standardized but contain enrollee or insured specific information, existing law does not require a health care service plan or health insurer to translate the documents into threshold languages identified by the needs assessment, but instead requires a written notice of availability of interpretation services in threshold languages identified by the needs assessment to be included with those vital documents.
California SB 223 (20172018) — Health care language assistance services.
(1) 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 provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance to adopt regulations establishing standards and requirements for health care service plans and health insurers to provide enrollees and insureds with appropriate access to language assistance in obtaining health care services, including requirements for individual access to interpretation services and requirements to conduct an assessment of the language preferences and linguistic needs of the enrollee and insured population and for the translation of vital documents. For those vital documents that are not standardized but contain enrollee or insured specific information, existing law does not require a health care service plan or health insurer to translate the documents into threshold languages identified by the needs assessment, but instead requires a written notice of availability of interpretation services in threshold languages identified by the needs assessment to be included with those vital documents.
Version chain
The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.
Unfinished Business SB223 Atkins Concurrence — 31–8 (pass) · upper
Sponsors
Atkins — primary (person)
Timeline
The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.
2017-02-02 Introduced. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment. To print. introduction, reading-1
2017-02-03 From printer. May be acted upon on or after March 5.
2017-02-16 Referred to Com. on HEALTH. referral-committee
2017-03-07 Set for hearing March 29.
2017-03-13 March 29 set for first hearing canceled at the request of author.
2017-03-14 Set for hearing April 19.
2017-04-05 From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on HEALTH. reading-2, referral-committee, amendment-passage, committee-passage, reading-1
2017-04-25 From committee: Do pass as amended and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 8. Noes 1. Page 807.) (April 19). committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage, amendment-passage
2017-04-26 Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on APPR. amendment-passage, reading-2, referral-committee, reading-1
2017-05-04 Set for hearing May 15.
2017-05-15 May 15 hearing: Placed on APPR. suspense file.
2017-05-19 Set for hearing May 25.
2017-05-25 From committee: Do pass. (Ayes 5. Noes 2. Page 1179.) (May 25). committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage
2017-05-26 Read second time. Ordered to third reading. reading-2, reading-1
2017-05-30 Read third time. Passed. (Ayes 31. Noes 9. Page 1266.) Ordered to the Assembly. reading-3, passage, reading-1
2017-05-31 In Assembly. Read first time. Held at Desk. reading-1
2017-06-08 Referred to Com. on HEALTH. referral-committee
2017-06-21 From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on HEALTH. reading-2, referral-committee, amendment-passage, committee-passage, reading-1
2017-06-28 From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 12. Noes 2.) (June 27). Re-referred to Com. on APPR. committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage, referral-committee
2017-08-23 August 23 set for first hearing. Placed on APPR. suspense file.
2017-09-01 From committee: Do pass as amended. (Ayes 11. Noes 5.) (September 1). committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage, amendment-passage
2017-09-05 Read second time and amended. Ordered to second reading. reading-1, amendment-passage, reading-2
2017-09-06 Read second time. Ordered to third reading. reading-2, reading-1
2017-09-13 Read third time. Passed. (Ayes 58. Noes 21. Page 3265.) Ordered to the Senate. reading-3, passage, reading-1
2017-09-14 In Senate. Concurrence in Assembly amendments pending.
2017-09-14 Assembly amendments concurred in. (Ayes 31. Noes 8. Page 2924.) Ordered to engrossing and enrolling. committee-passage-favorable, amendment-passage
2017-09-20 Enrolled and presented to the Governor at 4 p.m.
2017-10-13 Approved by the Governor. executive-signature
2017-10-13 Chaptered by Secretary of State. Chapter 771, Statutes of 2017.
Source
OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot 2026-07-01; origin ocd-bill/07aa31cd-6765-43c3-becc-5a9ea04c608f. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official California legislature records).
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