A controversial Assembly bill to kick two Orange County supervisors off the board of CalOptima Health was rewritten Wednesday to allow them to remain.
The proposal, Assembly Bill 2194 by Anaheim Democrat Avelino Valencia, also was amended to retain the county Board of Supervisors’ ability to appoint the CalOptima board. The last-minute changes were presented to the state Senate health committee, which delayed a final vote into the evening Wednesday, June 24.
Created more than 30 years ago by the county Board of Supervisors, CalOptima is Orange County’s $4.7 billion health insurer for the poor.
Valencia, in presenting the bill to the committee, thanked the panel for helping him hammer out a compromise with the county supervisors. He said his intent was to “depoliticize” the CalOptima board. And that hasn’t changed.
“Stepping back from those amendments (to wrest control of CalOptima from the county) doesn’t mean I’m stepping away or taking my eye off the ball,” said Valencia, who was elected to the state Assembly in 2022.
The charges this week mark the third time the bill has been amended.
Valencia originally introduced the bill in February to stagger the terms of the 10-member board — two of them county supervisors. The head of Orange County’s Health Care Agency serves in a nonvoting capacity.
The initial bill also would have allowed an alternate member from the Board of Supervisors to have access to confidential CalOptima materials.
Valencia, however, changed the bill dramatically last week to boot the supervisors from the CalOptima board and strip supervisors of their ability to appoint the CalOptima board members.
“Today, the same body that appoints the CalOptima board also holds seats on it, concentrating political power over an agency whose decisions should focus on member needs and medical expertise,” Valencia said at the time. “Removing the supervisors and placing selection in independent hands depoliticizes the board and keeps its governance separate from politics.”
One point of concern was the tenure of former county Supervisor Andrew Do, who also sat on the CalOptima board and is in federal prison after siphoning off more than $10 million in county money meant for the elderly. No criminal charges were brought for his tenure on the CalOptima board.
However, in 2022, Do was fined $12,000 by the state Fair Political Practices Commission for his “pay-to-play” activities while a CalOptima board member.
Valencia’s effort to loosen the county’s hold on CalOptima met with strong protests from a stunned Board of Supervisors and the CalOptima board of directors.
On Wednesday, Valencia switched gears. The new language sets the terms of county supervisors to one year and requires CalOptima to order an independent audit of the agency’s ethics, policies and practices. The investigation would have to be completed by July 1, 2027, and be released to the public.
Under the bill’s new language, the county Health Care Agency would make nominations for membership to the CalOptima board, which would be appointed by county supervisors.
“It appears 99% of what we were seeking seeking is in here, so we are very, very grateful,” Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who is chairman of the CalOptima board, told the committee. “We are working toward the same goal.”