NUHW is leading the fight for mental health parity, and it honored two of the state Legislature’s leading parity advocates during our union’s Leadership Conference on September 27 in San Francisco.
NUHW named Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, as its Assemblymember of the Year, and Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, as its State Senator of the Year. Both legislators accepted their awards and addressed approximately 300 NUHW stewards gathered at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Downtown SOMA.
“I’m a huge, huge fan of NUHW,” Wiener said after accepting his award Friday evening. “You’re not the biggest union, but you are among the mightiest. It’s been an honor to stand with you on the picket line at Kaiser. And, it’s been an honor to lock arms with you in passing bills.”
Wiener is the author of two landmark mental health bills. SB 855, which was passed into law in 2020, greatly expanded the rights of Californians to access medically necessary mental health and addiction medicine treatment. SB 221, which NUHW sponsored in 2021, requires health plans to provide medically necessary return therapy appointments within 10 business days.
Last year, Wiener authored SB 770, a bill sponsored by Healthy California Now, that requires state health officials to work with the federal government to receive necessary approvals for California to potentially become the first state to adopt a single-payer, Medicare for All healthcare system.
In accepting her award, Pellerin talked about her family’s challenges accessing behavioral health care as an inspiration in working with NUHW on two bills this past session, including AB 3221, which she announced during her remarks had just been signed into law by Governor Newsom.
The bill will allow the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) to conduct faster, more efficient investigations of health plans by giving the agency new tools such as the ability to demand digitally searchable data rather than reams of paper documents.
Pellerin also authored AB 3260, a bill that would have helped tens of thousands of Californians who get stuck in limbo when their health plans fail to respond to requests for care or resolve grievances in a timely manner. The bill was passed overwhelmingly by the State Assembly, but never made it to a vote in the State Senate after the DMHC significantly overestimated how much money it would cost to implement and enforce.
Pellerin said the agency “put out crazy numbers” on what the bill would cost, but added that she was not giving up. “We’re going to fight back next year,” she said. “And we’re going to get it to the governor’s desk, mark my words.”
“We’re proud to honor State Senator Wiener and Assemblymember Pellerin for their leadership in strengthening the rights of patients to get behavioral health care that meets their needs and empowering state enforcement agencies to hold health insurers accountable,” NUHW President Sophia Mendoza said prior to the award ceremony. “California now has among the strongest mental health parity laws in the nation, and it’s incumbent on state regulators to vigilantly enforce the laws so Californians can get the care they’re legally entitled to receive.”
NUHW President Emeritus Sal Rosselli added, “Our union is committed to achieving parity for behavioral health care, and we couldn’t have two bigger champions in that fight than Scott Wiener and Gail Pellerin. We’ve accomplished incredible things together, and there’s so much more we can do to ensure that California patients get timely and appropriate behavioral healthcare.”
