STAND. COM. REP. NO. 297-04

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2004

RE: H.B. No. 2090

H.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor and Public Employment, to which was referred H.B. No. 2090 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMPLOYEES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to protect the health of Hawaii's workers by directing the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) to adopt rules to clarify the definition of "eligible employee" for purposes of the Prepaid Health Care Act, as an employee who works 80 or more hours in a consecutive four week period, regardless of the number of hours worked in any one week of that period.

The Hawaii State AFL-CIO supported this measure. DLIR opposed this measure.

The Prepaid Health Care Act (PHCA) was enacted to require employers to provide health insurance for their employees. However, as specified by PHCA, a "regular employee" is one that works at least twenty hours each week for four consecutive weeks. This has led to the ineligibility of many part-time employees who work for 20 or more hours per week except for the one week in a four-week period that their employers cut their hours below twenty hours. In many cases, this is done by the employer to avoid having to provide health insurance to the affected employee.

 

Your Committee notes that Hawaii is currently facing a growing number of uninsured workers with an estimated 50 percent of the uninsured population consisting of working individuals -- some of them working at more than one job, and many also working 40 hours or more per week. However, these workers are not covered by PHCA. Your Committee believes that these hard-working employees deserve employer-sponsored health insurance coverage.

However, your Committee also recognizes that any substantive changes to Chapter 393, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), would be preempted by ERISA and could conceivably impact Hawaii's exemption. While this particular bill does not propose any statutory changes to Chapter 393, HRS, the implementation of this bill could arguably be viewed as a "substantive change" in the law.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this bill by:

(1) Inserting language that makes clear that in the event anything in this bill is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be preempted by ERISA, then the amendments made by this bill will be repealed in its entirety; and

(2) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor and Public Employment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2090, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2090, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Labor and Public Employment,

 

____________________________

MARCUS R. OSHIRO, Chair