California HMO rules stuck in limbo

In order to ensure that HMO patients received timely appointments with doctors, a 2002 law instructed California regulators "to develop and adopt regulations to ensure that enrollees have access to needed healthcare services in a timely manner." The law required the new rules be enacted by January 2004, but The Department of Managed Health Care did not release its proposed rules until 2007. When HMOs and doctors groups objected to them, the department scrapped the rules in favor of ones that let health plans come up with their own methods of complying with the law. The plans have to submit their guidelines in October 2008.