STAND. COM. REP. NO. 159

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1078

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2017

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Higher Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 1078 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LOAN REPAYMENT FOR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to try to alleviate the shortage of primary health care providers in Hawaii by appropriating funds to the loan repayment program administered through the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health, Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of Hawaii System, Hawaii State Center for Nursing, The Queen's Health Systems, Healthcare Association of Hawaii, Ohana Health Plan, AlohaCare, Lānai Community Health Center, Hawaii Pacific Health, Hawaii Academy of Family Physicians, Hawaii Psychological Association, Hawaii Medical Service Association, and sixteen individuals.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Hawaii Medical Board.

 

     Your Committees find that Hawaii is facing a shortage of over five hundred doctors, and that this shortage threatens the health of Hawaii residents and cumulatively affects the State's healthcare costs.  Your Committees further find that access to care in rural and underserved areas of Hawaii is especially concerning, as these areas have been the most significantly affected by the shortage of primary and behavioral healthcare providers.

 

     Your Committees recognize the increasingly high education costs for healthcare professionals and the need for the State to make efforts to attract healthcare professionals to practice in Hawaii.  Currently, the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa administers the only loan repayment program available in the State to healthcare professionals.  Your Committees find that healthcare professionals who have benefited from the loan repayment program serve in communities across the State, including Waianae, Hilo, and Wailuku.  Your Committees note testimony submitted by the University of Hawaii System indicating that because federal funding for the program requires a local dollar-for-dollar match, without financial support from the State the program will not be able to reapply for the federal grant and the loan repayment program will end.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Inserting language to clarify that the loan repayment program referred to is the Hawaii Rural Health Care Provider Loan Repayment Program and deleting the reference to psychologists, social workers, licensed professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists benefitting from the program because those professions are not included in section 309H-3, Hawaii Revised Statutes, which establishes the Hawaii Rural Health Care Provider Loan Repayment Program;

 

     (2)  Inserting a blank appropriation amount; and

 

     (3)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     Your Committees note that although the appropriation amount has been removed, the recommended appropriation for the Hawaii Rural Health Care Provider Loan Repayment Program is $250,000.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Higher Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1078, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1078, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Higher Education,

 

________________________________

KAIALI'I KAHELE, Chair

 

________________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair