STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2326

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2591

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2591 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to require and appropriate funds for the Executive Office on Aging to annually update the State Plan on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias, including a detailed work plan with specific tasks and timelines for each update, and to provide this update in a report to the Legislature and the Governor.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from four individuals. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Health Executive Office on Aging.

Your Committees find that Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. An estimated twenty-seven thousand individuals in Hawaii live with Alzheimer's disease, and this number is expected to grow. Accordingly, the Executive Office on Aging issued the State Plan on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias in 2013. However, the Executive Office on Aging has not updated the State Plan since it was issued. Your Committees find that a regularly updated State Plan is necessary for the State to properly prepare for the expected increase in individuals with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Although regular updates to the State Plan are important, your Committees recognize the burden that annual reporting may impose on the Executive Office on Aging. As such, your Committees find that updating the State Plan on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias once every other year will suffice; provided that the Executive Office on Aging includes in its annual report to the Legislature an update on the progress being made toward accomplishing the goals of the State Plan. Your Committees find that this will reduce the burden on the Executive Office on Aging while still accomplishing the purpose of this measure.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Requiring that the Executive Office on Aging amend the State Plan on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias once every biennium, rather than every year;

(2) Requiring that the Executive Office on Aging provide an update on progress made toward the goals of the State Plan on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias as part of its annual report to the Legislature, rather than as a separate report to the Legislature and Governor;

(3) Removing the appropriation amount of $175,000 and leaving the amount blank; and

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

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2591, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2591, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health and Human Services,

________________________________ JOSH GREEN, Chair

________________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair