Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2364 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to:

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Human Services Office of Youth Services, the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon, LLP, Hawaii Psychiatric Medical Association, and two individuals.

Your Committee finds that under current law, insurance companies have the option to exclude coverage for injuries sustained by insured persons as a result of intoxication from alcohol or narcotics. Health care professionals are often reluctant to link substance or alcohol abuse to an injury for fear they will not be reimbursed for services rendered.

Your Committee further finds that repealing the exclusionary option for insurers and establishing a pilot program that addresses substance abuse issues at the "teachable" moment when a person enters an emergency room is an effective approach to ensure that needed health care and intervention are received.

Your Committee amended this measure to specify two pilot project sites and the criteria for each. Your Committee wants to ensure that one pilot program site shall be located at a major urban trauma center in Honolulu and the other at a neighbor island acute care hospital that has a high volume of emergency department trauma traffic, a high percentage of substance use co-morbidity in the emergency department population, and is in close proximity to medical or allied medical educational facilities at or above the community college level.

Your Committee further amended the appropriation provision of this measure by appropriating $1,801,529, deleting reference to positions and operating expenses, and making the expending agency the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

Your Committee further amended this measure by making additional technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2364, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2364, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.