Report Title:

Medical Assistance; Disclosure of Applicant's Employer

Description:

Requires DHS to annually identify employers of applicants for medical assistance programs and disclose them to the legislature. Requires report to include cost of medical assistance to these applicants. Requires DHS to make public these employers without identifying individual applicants.

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

1772

TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2005

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to employers.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that many employees at large companies are paid low wages and qualify for government programs for the poor and near poor. If large employers do not fully cover the cost of health care coverage for their employees, taxpayers are often forced to pick up the cost instead. The children of these low-paid workers qualify for government benefits under medicaid and the state children's health insurance program because most of these employees are low-wage workers.

For example, in Georgia, more than ten thousand children of Wal-Mart employees were enrolled in Georgia's public health insurance program for children, PeachCare, according to a 2002 state government study. The number of Wal-Mart employees' children enrolled in the program far exceeded the number of children of any other employer. Wal-Mart's failure to cover these children cost federal and state taxpayers an estimated $6,600,000. In Washington, Wal-Mart had four hundred fifty-three children, the highest in Washington, enrolled in medicaid in 2002.

The purpose of this Act is to enable the State to determine which employers are shifting responsibility for providing health care coverage for their workers to taxpayers.

SECTION 2. Chapter 346, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:

"§346-   Medical assistance; information collected in application; disclosure; public right to information. (a) Each applicant for medical assistance under any program administered by the department of human services shall identify the employer of the proposed beneficiary of medical assistance. If the proposed beneficiary is unemployed, the applicant for medical assistance shall identify the employer of any adult who is responsible for providing all or some of the proposed beneficiary's support. For the purposes of this section, "proposed beneficiary" means any person who files an application for health care benefits or hospital care for the person or any other individual on whose behalf an application is filed, including children or other dependents of the applicant or other individual for whom the application is filed.

(b) Before October 1 of each year, the department of human services shall submit to the legislature a written report identifying all employers identified pursuant to the application requirements in subsection (a) who employ twenty-five or more beneficiaries of medical assistance programs administered by the department. In determining whether the twenty-five-employee threshold is met, the department of human services shall include all beneficiaries employed by the employer and its subsidiaries at all locations within the State. The report shall include:

(1) Each employer's name and names of subsidiaries, if appropriate, that employ those beneficiaries;

(2) Location of the employer;

(3) Total number of the employer's employees and dependents who are enrolled in each medical assistance program; and

(4) Total cost to the State of providing medical assistance benefits for the employees and enrolled dependents of each identified employer.

The report shall not include the names of any individual medical assistance program beneficiary and shall be subject to privacy standards pursuant to Public Law 104-191, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

(c) In addition to submitting the report to the legislature, the department shall make the report available to the public through any means the director deems appropriate.

(d) Any member of the public has a right to request and receive a copy of the annual reports published pursuant to subsection (b)."

SECTION 3. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

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