STAND. COM. REP. NO. 390

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1310

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2009

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 1310 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTHCARE,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Human Services to allow QUEST expanded access recipients the choice to opt out of the QUEST plan and receive services through AlohaCare from medical homes located in Waimanalo and Waianae.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center and Waimanalo Health Center.  Testimony in opposition of this measure was submitted by the Department of Human Services and the Attorney General.

 

     Written testimony presented to the Committee may be reviewed on the Legislature's website.

 

     Your Committees find that community-based medical home models such as the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center and the Waimanalo Health Center provide vital health care services to the communities they serve.  Your Committees further find that establishing a federal demonstration project will be an effective way to receive federal funds for services provided through alternative providers.

 

     Your Committees also find that this measure is needed to enable the necessary appropriation of federal stimulus funds.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Replacing its contents with language that establishes the region-specific, medical home health care federal demonstration project for the Waimanalo and Waianae area that provides culturally-sensitive, community-based services, including integrated behavioral services, which are vital to the populations they serve; and

 

     (2)  Changing the appropriation to provide funds to the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, provided that only moneys received by the State and deposited into the state general fund pursuant to the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 may be expended for the purposes of this Act.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1310, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1310, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Human Services,

 

____________________________

SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair

 

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair