STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2375

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 3017

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Higher Education and the Arts and Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 3017 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to address the shortage of family medicine primary care physicians for rural Oahu and neighbor island communities by making an appropriation to support and expand the medical residency education programs at the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the University of Hawaii System, Hawaii Pacific Health, Hawaii Medical Service Association, Hawaii Academy of Family Practice, The Queen's Health Systems, and two individuals.

     Your Committees find that studies of the physician workforce in Hawaii indicate a shortage of seven hundred physicians, with the greatest shortages existing in primary care specialties and rural areas.  Increasing demands on the State's health care system due to population growth, aging, and the prevalence of chronic diseases require an increase in the existing physician base.  Access to a personal physician decreases morbidity and mortality, promotes early detection and careful management of chronic diseases, and controls health care costs by deferring unnecessary hospital admissions and unnecessary emergency department visits.

     Your Committees also find that considerable educational debt deters medical students from primary care specialties and rural employment because other specialties in urban areas often offer higher compensation.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Higher Education and the Arts and Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3017 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Higher Education and the Arts and Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health,

________________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair

________________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair