Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2338 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to make an emergency appropriation to the Department of Health for the State's Medicaid home and community-based services for the developmentally disabled or mentally retarded program, also known has the title XIX waiver program.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of the Attorney General, the Department of Health, the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Hawaii Disability Rights Center, the Hawaii Medical Association, and the Hawaii Waiver Providers Association.

A critical funding emergency exists for the Developmental Disabilities Division of the Department of Health due to an increase in the anticipated admissions to the Medicaid waiver program. This increase in admissions is a result of the settlement agreement in HDRC v. State, Civil No. 03-00524 HG-KSC, in August 2005, under which the Department of Health must continue to reasonably admit individuals with mental retardation or developmental disabilities into the Medicaid waiver program, a program that matches state funds with federal funds to meet the needs of disabled individuals so that they may live in the community. This emergency appropriation will enable the State to comply with the settlement agreement, Chapter 333F, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Olmstead v. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581 (1999).

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. 2338 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.