STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2512
Honolulu, Hawaii
RE: S.B. No. 3257
S.D. 2
Honorable Colleen Hanabusa
President of the Senate
Twenty-Fourth State Legislature
Regular Session of 2008
State of Hawaii
Madam:
Your Committees on Human Services and Public Housing and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 3257, S.D. 1, entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MEDICAID PRESUMPTIVE ELIGIBILITY,"
beg leave to report as follows:
The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Human Services to provide presumptive eligibility to Medicaid or QUEST eligible waitlisted patients.
Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Hawaii Disability Rights Center, the Hawaii Long Term Care Association, Hawaii Pacific Health, and the Healthcare Association of Hawaii. Oral testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Human Services.
Your Committees find that on any given day, as many as two hundred and seventy five individuals are waitlisted for transfer to long term care facilities, and can wait as long as a year to be discharged. Your Committees further find that all avenues must be explored to resolving this serious waitlist dilemma, including providing certain patients with presumptive eligibility for Medicaid.
Your Committees have amended this measure by:
(1) Amending the effective and sunset dates to facilitate further discussion; and
(2) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and style.
As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services and Public Housing and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3257, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3257, S.D. 2.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Human Services and Public Housing and Health,
____________________________ DAVID Y. IGE, Chair |
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____________________________ SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair |
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