I dissected legislation seeking to reform California’s mismanaged medical interpreting system, a loosely organized program that ends up preventing many non-English speaking hospital patients from receiving proper care. If enacted, AB 1263 would have required the state to spend $1-2 million on a statewide medical interpreter system in order to obtain nearly $270 million in federal funds from Obamacare. This funding would have created a state-certified, Medi-Cal-patient-centered program known as CommuniCal, responsible for developing, monitoring and evaluating its own interpreter qualifications. The new program would have also created nearly 7,000 interpreting jobs statewide. While many patient advocacy groups supported the legislation, and many medical interpreters expressed frustrations with the state’s problematic interpreting system, I discovered several unintentional consequences of the bill.
