STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2696

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2092

       S.D. 2

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2092, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Human Services to presume that waitlisted patients applying for medicaid are eligible for coverage subject to certain limitations.

Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from The Hawaii Disability Rights Center and Hawaii Health Systems Corporation.

Your Committee finds that delays in medicaid eligibility determinations prevent waitlisted patients, those ready for discharge and no longer requiring acute care services, from being discharged.  These patients must therefore remain under hospital care where they consume valuable health resources.  Your Committee finds that requiring presumptive medicaid eligibility, subject to the requirements of the measure, will allow waitlisted patients to be transferred to a medicaid funded care facility or to return home sooner, increase patient quality of life, and prevent the financial drain on acute care hospitals, while minimizing the risk that some patients are later determined to be ineligible for medicaid.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1)  Clarifying that the verification of assets by a patient, for purposes of demonstrating presumptive medicaid eligibility, shall be at or below the medicaid threshold;

(2)  Changing the appropriation to an unspecified amount for purposes of further discussion;

(3)  Changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to promote further discussion; and

(4)  Making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2092, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2092, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair