Sacramento

On his final day to act on more than 140 bills, Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday waded into sensitive areas of health care and law enforcement, signing a bill requiring health plans to cover a key autism treatment and another that protects illegal immigrant drivers at police checkpoints.

The governor signed a measure allowing children as young as 12 to seek prevention treatment, such as vaccinations, for sexually transmitted diseases such as HPV without parental consent. Brown vetoed a bill that would have given women additional information about their mammography results.

The governor signaled reluctance in signing the autism bill, SB946 by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. It mandates that health plans cover applied behavioral analysis therapy for children with autism, beginning in July 2012 and continuing for two years.

As a result, the mandate will either be temporary or act as a bridge to 2014, when the federal government is set to issue minimum coverage standards as part of the health care overhaul.

“While this bill provides relief for families of autistic children and some clarity for health plans, insurers and providers, there are remaining questions about effectiveness, duration, and the cost of the covered treatment that must be sorted out,” the governor wrote in a signing statement.

The mandate does not apply to the state’s Medi-Cal program, and Steinberg said that was because of the potential cost to the state’s budget.

‘Critical victory’

“This is a critical victory for thousands of California children and families. For many of them, having this therapy covered by their insurance is the difference between despair and hope,” Steinberg said in a statement.

The state Department of Managed Health Care had, earlier in the year, entered into settlements with major health care providers that ostensibly addressed the issue, but advocates and parents of autistic children labeled it a “sham” agreement.

Bob Wright, co-founder of Autism Speaks, a national advocacy

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