STAND. COM. REP. NO 401

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 113

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 113 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE HAWAII STATE LOAN REPAYMENT PROGRAM,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for the implementation and administration of the Hawaii state loan repayment program.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, The Queen's Health Systems, Hawaii Primary Care Association, and fourteen individuals.

     Your Committee finds that many residents of Hawaii are increasingly unable to obtain timely and appropriate health care due to shortages of primary care and behavioral health providers.  Such shortages threaten the health of Hawaii's residents and affect state health care costs.  These shortages have pushed the federal government to designate a number of areas in the State, particularly rural areas, as medically underserved areas, health professional shortage areas, or having medically underserved populations.

     Your Committee further finds that the increasingly high cost of health care professional education requires individuals to seek out the higher incomes that allow them to repay their student loans.  However, these higher incomes are usually in specialty care in urban areas, not in the areas of greatest need in Hawaii.  Since September 1, 2012, a total of sixteen physicians and nurse practitioners have received loan repayment to work in health professional shortage areas in Hawaii and are still serving these communities through a loan repayment program started by the John A. Burns School of Medicine of the University of Hawaii.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by amending the appropriation amount from $450,000 to $311,875.

     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. 113, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 113, 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, Chair