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Community Hospitals Initiative Enters Circulation

State Fees on Community Hospitals. Federal
Medi-Cal Matching Funds. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

STATE FEES ON COMMUNITY HOSPITALS. FEDERAL MEDI-CAL MATCHING FUNDS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Prohibits state fees on community hospitals imposed for the purpose of obtaining federal Medi-Cal matching funds unless the fee proceeds, any matching federal funds, and their earnings are used only to supplement, and not supplant, existing community hospital Medi-Cal funding. Makes exceptions for use of fee proceeds for costs of collection and administration, and use of certain amounts of fee proceeds for healthcare to children enrolled in Medi-Cal generally. Requires annual audit of funds collected. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: No fiscal impact on state and local governments given that, under current law, no fee would be in place that would be affected by the measure's requirements pertaining to certain fees imposed on hospitals. (13-0012.)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1602 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 13-0012.

The proponent for the measure, Thomas W. Hiltachk, must collect signatures of 807,615 registered voters – the number equal to eight percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponent has 150 days to circulate petitions for the measure, meaning the signatures must be collected by February 10, 2014.

The initiative proponent can be reached at (916) 442-7757.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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