Addiction treatment was initially expected to be a central aspect to the rewritten law, but the requirement was “quietly dropped” through a recent round of amendments.
The proposal has faced opposition over concerns that the measure’s strict spending parameters would result in cuts to other services. Meanwhile, there are only weeks left for the Legislature to approve the “contentious proposal,” according to the report.
The governor’s office did not confirm the reasoning behind the decision to make the addiction services an optional benefit of the program. However, Mark Ghaly, MD, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, said in a hearing that “driven by the data, there isn’t a county I can imagine in California that doesn’t have some compelling data and voice at the table to start to invest some of these dollars in substance use disorder services alone,” according to the report.
Individuals such as California Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula expressed opposition toward dropping the requirement in an Aug. 22 hearing, calling it “problematic” as the overdose rates continue to rise, according to the report.
“I think the whole vision for this proposal, and the way that it was shared from the very beginning, is that we’re taking a really deep look at how we can actually ensure that people are getting access to care,” Andrea Rivera, associate director of legislative affairs at California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, testified at the hearing. “And we’re making one of the core provisions, the substance use piece, optional.”
Mr. Newsom changed the name of the proposal from the Mental Health Services Act to the Behavioral Health Services Act, as an attempt to reiterate that treating addiction is still a substantial goal, according to the report.