(1) Existing law establishes the Department of Health Care Access and Information and requires the department to maintain a Health Professions Career Opportunity Program to, among other things, implement programs at colleges and universities selected by the department and include in those programs pipeline programs that provide comprehensive academic enrichment, career development, mentorship, and advising in order to support students from underrepresented regions and backgrounds to pursue health careers. Existing law requires, in accordance with the compliance schedule approved by the department, but in any case no later than January 1, 2030, owners of all acute care inpatient hospitals to either demolish, replace, or change to nonacute care use all hospital buildings not in substantial compliance with certain regulations and standards developed by the department related to seismic safety or to seismically retrofit all acute care inpatient hospital buildings so that they are in substantial compliance with those regulations and standards.

This bill would authorize the department to enter into contracts, to meet the requirements of the Health Professions Career Opportunity Program, with nonprofit entities headquartered in California that have previous experience with administering statewide workforce programs aimed at building a diverse provider workforce.

This bill would establish the Small and Rural Hospital Relief Program under the administration of the department for the purpose of funding seismic safety compliance with respect to small hospitals, rural hospitals, and critical access hospitals in the state. The bill would require the department to provide grants to small, rural, and critical access hospital applicants that meet certain criteria, including that seismic safety compliance, as defined, imposes a financial burden on the applicant that may result in hospital closure. The bill would also create the Small and Rural Hospital Relief Fund and would continuously appropriate the moneys in the fund for the purposes of administering and funding the grant program.

(2) The Cigarette and Tobacco Products Tax Law imposes a tax on distributors of cigarettes at the rate of $2.87 per package of 20 cigarettes and a tax on distributors of tobacco products, based on wholesale cost, at a rate determined annually that is equivalent to the combined rate of all taxes imposed on cigarettes plus an additional rate equivalent to $0.50 per package of 20 cigarettes. These taxes are inclusive of the taxes imposed under the Tobacco Tax and Health Protection Act of 1988, the California Families and Children Act of 1998, and the California Healthcare, Research and Prevention Tobacco Tax Act of 2016.

The California Healthcare, Research and Prevention Tobacco Tax Act of 2016 (Proposition 56), an initiative measure approved at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, revised the definition of tobacco products to include electronic cigarettes, thereby extending the taxes on distributors of tobacco products to distributors of electronic cigarettes, which is based on the wholesale cost of these products. Proposition 56 requires the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to adopt regulations providing for the implementation of the equivalent tax on electronic cigarettes and the methods for collection of the tax.

This bill would, beginning July 1, 2022, require a purchaser of electronic cigarettes, as defined, at retail to pay a tax on the purchase for use in this state of an electronic cigarette from a retailer of 12.5% of the sales price from the sale of an electronic cigarette. The bill would require a retailer to collect the tax from the purchaser at the time of the retail sale of an electronic cigarette. The bill would require all revenues, interest, and penalties, less refunds, collected from the tax described above to be deposited into the California Electronic Cigarette Excise Tax Fund, a continuously appropriated fund created by the bill, and would require all amounts in the fund to be distributed to the Health Education Account in the Cigarette and Tobacco Products Surtax Fund, the California Children and Families Trust Fund, to fund the Proposition 56 Medi-Cal Physicians and Dentists Loan Repayment Act, the University of California, to support the joint program in medical education between the University of California, Merced and the University of California, San Francisco at Fresno, the Small and Rural Hospital Relief Fund created by this bill, and to the Department of Health Care Access and Information to fund the Health Professions Career Opportunity Program described above, as specified. By creating a continuously appropriated fund and allocating additional moneys to continuously appropriated funds, this bill would make an appropriation.

The bill would provide for the administration and collection of this tax pursuant to procedures set forth in the Fee Collection Procedures Law. By expanding the application of the Fee Collection Procedures Law, the violation of which is a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

(3) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.