Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2591, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Health to provide services to maintain and enhance caregiving for persons sixty years old and older in community-based homes that are not fee for service businesses.

This measure requires no appropriation but simply clarifies the types of supportive services that the Department of Health may provide to caregivers that are assisting persons with disabilities.

Your Committee finds that this measure shifts the spotlight from financing long-term care to supporting the people who are providing the greatest proportion of long-term care for Hawaii's elderly – family caregivers.

Your Committee has amended this measure by making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and uniformity.

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. 2591, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2591, S.D. 2.