STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1113

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 872

 

 

 

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 H.B. No. 872 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 out of the nursing facility sustainability program special fund.

 

     More specifically, this measure makes an emergency appropriation of $12,000,000 out of the nursing facility sustainability program special fund for fiscal year 2012-2013, to be used for the purposes of the special fund, including reimbursement of moneys advanced from the health care payments program.

 

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services and the Healthcare Association of Hawaii.

 

Your Committee finds that the nursing facility sustainability program special fund was established by Act 156, Session Laws of Hawaii 2012, to help fund increasing health care costs for Medicaid enrollees in private nursing facilities.  However, because of a technical omission, moneys in the special fund could not be expended as intended.  Instead, moneys from the health care payments program were used to make supplemental payments to nursing facilities to prevent delay of payments to those facilities.  Accordingly, your Committee finds that this emergency appropriation is necessary to reimburse the moneys advanced from the health care payments program and to continue timely supplemental payments to nursing facilities from the nursing facility sustainability program special fund for the rest of the fiscal year.  This measure will prevent any disruptions in the provision of medically necessary services to Medicaid recipients.

 

     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 H.B. No. 872, 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