STAND. COM. REP. NO. 616

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1103

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1103 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN EMERGENCY APPROPRIATION TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES FROM THE NURSING FACILITY SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAM SPECIAL FUND,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to make an emergency appropriation from the nursing facility sustainability program special fund of $12,000,000 for fiscal year 2012-2013 to be used in accordance with the purposes of that fund, including the reimbursement of moneys advanced for those purposes in fiscal year 2012-2013 from the health care payments program.

 

     Your Committee received comments in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services, Healthcare Association of Hawaii, Pearl City Nursing Home, and two concerned individuals.

 

     Your Committee finds that private nursing facilities are often underpaid for the care provided to Medicaid enrollees.  The nursing facility sustainability program special fund was established by Act 156, Session Laws of Hawaii 2012, to address this shortfall by assessing fees on nursing facilities and utilizing those moneys to draw down federal dollars to help offset their uncompensated care.  While those fees are being assessed, the Department of Human Services, in good faith, has advanced moneys from the Medicaid health care payments program so that payments to private nursing facilities would not be delayed.

 

This measure will authorize the expenditure of funds from the nursing facility sustainability program special fund to ensure that the Department of Human Services will be able to continue making supplemental payments to nursing facilities and avoid a shortfall for the moneys it has already advanced.

 

     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. 1103 and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

 

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

 

 

 

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair