STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2346

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2605

       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 and Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 2605 entitled:

 

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

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Require the Department of Health to educate the public about issues that affect children's oral health;

 

     (2)  Establish and appropriate funds for an electronic system to track data relating to children's dental health;

 

     (3)  Require the Department of Education to operate school gardens or farms to grow fruits and vegetables to be offered to school children through school meal programs subject to all the appropriate laws, rules, and safety standards;

 

     (4)  Require the fees that the State pays to dentists for services provided to individuals enrolled in QUEST or QUEST Expanded Access to be no less than a specified percentage of the fees prescribed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Medicare fee schedule beginning on January 1, 2013; and

 

     (5)  Appropriate funds to increase payments for dental services to QUEST and QUEST Expanded Access program participants.

 

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Community Pediatrics Institute, Hawaii Primary Care Association, and one individual.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Education.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, and Good Beginnings Alliance.

 

     Your Committees find that according to the Pew Center on the States' 2011 "The State of Children's Dental Health:  Making Coverage Matter", Hawaii's children were rated the worst overall performer among the fifty states and the District of Columbia.  Your Committees also find that more than half of Hawaii's children on Medicaid received no dental service in 2009.  Your Committees further find that with the abolishment of the Department of Health's Dental Hygiene Section in 2009, the State is unable to collect crucial children's oral health data, which resulted in an ineffective state children dental health program.

 

     This measure will improve awareness of oral hygiene, increase available data on children's dental health, and encourage the provision of dental services to QUEST and the QUEST Expanded Access program participants - all aimed to improve the oral health of Hawaii's children.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Deleting language requiring the Department of Education to operate school gardens or farms at every public elementary and secondary school;

 

     (2)  Authorizing the Department of Human Services, rather than the Medicare fee schedule, to determine the fees payable to dentists for the provision of dental services to individuals who receive medical assistance through the QUEST or the QUEST Expanded Access program; and

 

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

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services and Health and Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2605, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2605, 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 and Education,

 

____________________________

JOSH GREEN, M.D., Chair

 

____________________________

SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair

 

 

____________________________

JILL TOKUDA, Chair