STAND. COM. REP. NO. 858

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 129

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 1

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 129, H.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PERINATAL CARE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for the continued operation of the Path Clinic in order to provide its patients with ongoing prenatal care that addresses their addictions and provide them with social service support, parenting education, and transportation.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health; Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii, Democratic Party of Hawai‘i; Hawaii Medical Association; Community Alliance on Prisons; The Drug Policy Action Group; The Drug Policy Forum of Hawai‘i; March of Dimes Foundation Hawaii Chapter; Planned Parenthood of Hawaii; Hawai‘i State Democratic Women's Caucus; League of Women Voters of Hawaii; and five private citizens. 

     Your Committee acknowledges that the Path Clinic is a comprehensive perinatal addiction clinic that integrates prenatal and postpartum obstetric clinical services, addiction medicine services, and social services and provides critical services that should continue to be funded.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

     (1)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2011; and

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for purposes of clarity and consistency. 

     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 H.B. No. 129, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 129, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

____________________________

JOSH GREEN, M.D., Chair