State Policy
State Legislation
Below is a list of key state bills that CAPH is actively tracking during the 2025 legislative session. Bills are organized by CAPH’s position.
Oppose
AB 339 (Ortega) — Local Public Employee Organizations: Notice Requirements
Requires public entities to provide written notice to recognized employee organizations (labor unions) 45 days before issuing requests for proposals, requests for quotes, or revising job classifications and employment contracts. CAPH opposes the bill due to concerns about operational delays and workforce flexibility.
CAPH’s opposition letter can be found here. Signed into law on October 13, 2025.
AB 1337 (Ward) – Information Practices Act of 1977
Expands privacy and data sharing policies, under the Information Practices Act, to all local entities including public health care systems. The expanded policies would be duplicative and do not align with HIPPA or CMIA. AB 1337 further subjects’ health care providers to data sharing restrictions that may interfere with timely patient care, and risks straining already limited financial resources to train staff on new requirements and administrative processes.
CAPH joined a coalition, the opposition letter can be found here. This bill failed passage in the 2025 legislative session but was granted reconsideration for the 2026 session. It is now a two-year bill
SB 596 (Menjivar) — Health facilities: administrative penalties
Amends existing law to specifically define an on-call list for enforcement of the nurse-to-patient ratio requirements, including documentation that hospitals have used and exhausted their on-call list before qualifying for an exemption from staffing violation penalties. Under the July 2025 amendments, an “on-call list” is now strictly defined as nurses who are scheduled to be on call for the specific shift and unit where a violation occurred, or nurses assigned to a regularly scheduled float pool shift to cover shortages across one or more specified units. The bill significantly narrows what hospitals can count as exhausting their on-call list before claiming a staffing exception, explicitly stating that contacting licensed nurses who are not scheduled to be on-call and not assigned to a float pool for that specific unit and shift will not satisfy the on-call list requirement.
CAPH’s position letter can be found here. Signed into law on October 13, 2025.
SB 632 (Arreguín) — Workers’ Compensation: Hospital Employees
Creates presumptive eligibility for workers’ compensation if hospital workers contract respiratory and infectious diseases like COVID-19, creating the assumption that the employee became ill while working.
CAPH’s opposition letter can be found here. This is now a two year bill.
Support
AB 539 (Schiavo) — Health care coverage: prior authorizations
Requires a health care service plan’s or health insurer’s prior authorization for a service to remain valid for at least one year from the date of approval, or throughout the course of prescribed treatment if less than one year. By reducing redundant paperwork and streamlining administrative processes, this legislation would reduce repeated requests and resubmissions which risk delaying timely patient care.
CAPH’s support letter can be found here. This bill failed passage in Senate Appropriations and was held on suspense. This is now a two-year bill.
AB 543 (Gonzalez) Medi-Cal: street medicine
Authorizes a Medi-Cal managed care plan to elect to offer Medi-Cal services, through an in-network and contracted field medicine provider; and require coverage of services provided regardless of the beneficiary’s network assignment if the beneficiary is an individual experiencing homelessness. AB 543 also contains a requirement for the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to include an application for insurance affordability programs as an optional question allowing Medi-Cal applicants to indicate if they are experiencing homelessness.
CAPH’s support letter can be found here. Signed into law on October 6, 2025.
AB 618 (Krell) — Medi-Cal: Behavioral Health: Data Sharing
Requires DHCS to create a statewide data-sharing framework among Medi-Cal plans, counties, and providers, to standardize sharing behavioral health data. CAPH supports this will as it will improve coordinated care for behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment for Medi-Cal patients.
CAPH’s support letter can be found here. This bill failed passage in Senate Appropriations and was held on suspense.
State Policy Archive
Learn about CAPH's key state legislative priorities from past legislative sessions.