Report Title:
Insurance; Universal
Description:
Establishes a board to oversee a single-payer healthcare system.
|
THE SENATE |
S.B. NO. |
2436 |
|
TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2006 |
||
|
STATE OF HAWAII |
||
|
|
A BILL FOR AN ACT
RELATING TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE SYSTEM.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. The legislature agrees with silver legislature that it is in the best interest of the State for every individual to have high quality and affordable healthcare insurance coverage. Healthcare is more than just medical insurance pay-outs. It includes cost-saving preventive and early intervention measures to prohibit medical conditions from becoming chronic.
Hawaii's current healthcare industry is a costly, inefficient, and unnecessarily complex multi-payer private medical insurance model that is profit-driven, adversarial (with constant cost-shifting and reluctant healthcare delivery), and economically irrational. Additionally, healthcare rates are skyrocketing at double-digit levels and are creating an affordability and accessibility crisis for Hawaii's residents.
By comparison, Canada has a universal healthcare social insurance model with one pay-out agency. This system is beneficial for the following reasons:
(1) For union members, it means taking healthcare off the negotiating table;
(2) For patients, it means significant reductions in costs, increases in benefits, and reductions in inflation;
(3) For businesses, large and small, it reduces significant overhead expenses;
(4) For the local economy and government, it means keeping almost all healthcare dollars in the State;
(5) For physicians, it means less paperwork and much more time with patients;
(6) For hospitals and community health clinics, it means sufficient and dependable annual financing through global budgets; and
(7) For the general public, it means accessible and affordable healthcare.
The purpose of this Act is to take the first steps to create a unified, single-payer universal healthcare system that covers all Hawaii residents, in a way that is similar to the system in Canada.
SECTION 2. Chapter 431, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:
"§431:A- Hawaii healthcare financing board. (a) There is established a single-payer universal healthcare system. An elected seven-member Hawaii healthcare financing board shall be established to set policy and oversee the planning, financing, and accounting for the pay-outs from Hawaii's single-payer healthcare-for-all system. The board shall be attached to the department of commerce and consumer affairs for administrative purposes.
(b) The board shall have the authority to:
(1) Receive all federal, state, and other appropriate healthcare revenue;
(2) Assess a temporary progressive income surtax for the Hawaii healthcare financing board's start-up and emergency costs as necessary;
(3) Be the single-payer of universal healthcare financing (the one pay-out agency) for Hawaii; and
(4) Hire a chief executive officer who shall be accountable for the development and success of the single-payer universal healthcare system."
SECTION 3. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $2,925,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2006-2007, for preparations in establishing a single-payer universal health care system.
SECTION 4. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of commerce and consumer affairs for the purposes of this Act.
SECTION 5. In codifying the new sections added by section 2 of this Act, the revisor of statutes shall substitute appropriate section numbers for the letters used in designating the new sections in this Act.
SECTION 6. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 7. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2006.
|
INTRODUCED BY: |
_____________________________ |