Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2591 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Health (DOH) to provide certain family and caregiver support services to persons aged sixty and older and their families and caregivers.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Policy Advisory Board for Elderly Affairs, Kokua Council, and a private individual. Testimony in opposition was received from the Executive Office on Aging.

Your Committees find that the percentage of the population aged 65 and over is expected to rise from thirteen per cent to eighteen per cent by the year 2020. As this population ages, more and more residents will need the care and help of others to sustain themselves. Your Committees further find that informal family care provides about eighty per cent of caregiving, but caregivers often face enormous challenges and risks to their own personal health and happiness.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2591, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2591, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.