Article 1. General of California Insurance Code >> Division 2. >> Part 2. >> Chapter 9. >> Article 1.

This chapter shall be known as the Private Health Care Voluntary Purchasing Alliance Act.

The purpose of this chapter is to improve the competition in the pricing and delivering of health care coverage for employers and small employers. It does so by allowing for the establishment of private competing purchasing alliances through which eligible employers or small employers can purchase health coverage. Another goal is to avoid jurisdictional confusion by clarifying the respective roles and jurisdiction of existing regulatory agencies and a purchasing alliance. This chapter provides a mechanism for employers or small employers to join together solely for the purpose of procuring health coverage and operates as an exception to existing false group or fictitious group laws.

This chapter is also intended to provide a meaningful choice of high quality, fairly priced health care providers, and health care coverage for participating employers and employees of a purchasing alliance through a system that is fair, efficient, and accountable to its members and includes procedural and substantive protections.

It is envisioned that a purchasing alliance will contract with qualified group carriers to provide a meaningful choice of carriers providing health benefit plans or ancillary benefit plans to purchasing alliance participants.