STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2214

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2083

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Human Services and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2083 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Department of Human Services to match the federal Medicaid disproportionate share hospital allowance allocated to the State.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Government Employee Association, AFSCME Local 152, AFL-CIO; the Hawaii Primary Care Association; the Healthcare Association of Hawaii; Kaiser Permanente; The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii; and two individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Human Services.

 

     Your Committees find that Hawaii is experiencing a hospital provider shortage.  Many facilities provide services to Medicaid patients, who on average have health conditions and associated socio-economic problems that lead to higher service delivery costs.  Existing facilities should be provided with the payments necessary to ensure the continued delivery of high-quality emergency and in-patient services.  Your Committees also find that this measure, as currently drafted, would authorize a new appropriation over and above certified public expenditures as the State's share for the full disproportionate share hospital allowance and would result in an increase in the supplement to more than $19,000,000 or an additional $9,282,684 for the State's share for fiscal year 2012, which was not included in the Governor's budget.

 

     Your Committees have therefore amended this measure by inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050, to ensure further discussion.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2083, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2083, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

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

 

____________________________

JOSH GREEN, M.D., Chair

 

____________________________

SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair