STAND. COM. REP. NO. 646

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1140

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2009

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1140, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH CARE,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to require health plans, other than government payors and limited benefit health insurance policy insurers, to reimburse critical access hospitals and federally qualified health centers at rates consistent with medicare and medicaid reimbursement rates.

 

     Your Committee received two comments on this measure.  Copies of written comments submitted to the Committee are available for review on the Legislature's website.

 

     Your Committee finds that critical access hospitals and federally qualified health centers that serve the economically disadvantaged play a critical role in the State's health care system.  Low reimbursement health care rates, however, have caused financial problems for all health care systems, especially those that serve the poor.

 

Currently, government is subsidizing the costs of healthcare services for the disadvantaged because health insurance plans in Hawaii are not paying for the full costs of health care provided to plan beneficiaries.  Unless the State continues to provide special subsidies to cover the operating costs of critical access hospitals and federally qualified health centers, these health care providers will cease to exist.

 

This measure requires commercial health care providers to pay not less than one hundred and one per cent of costs, consistent with medicare and medicaid reimbursement rates, for all services rendered to applicable health plan beneficiaries.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to facilitate further discussion on this issue and by making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and style.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1140, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1140, S.D. 2.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

 

 

____________________________

DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair