STAND.
COM. REP. NO. 352-20
Honolulu, Hawaii
, 2020
RE: H.B. No. 2254
H.D. 1
Honorable Scott K. Saiki
Speaker, House of Representatives
Thirtieth State Legislature
Regular Session of 2020
State of Hawaii
Sir:
Your Committees on Health and Lower & Higher Education, to which was referred H.B. No. 2254 entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LOAN REPAYMENT FOR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS,"
beg leave to report as follows:
The purpose of this measure to appropriate funds for fiscal year 2020-2021 to the Department of Health to fund the Health Care Provider Loan Repayment Program administered through the John A. Burns School of Medicine to provide loan repayment for physicians, physician assistants, psychologists, nurse practitioners, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and nurses who agree to work in a federally-designated health professional shortage area or in a geographic area of Hawaii found to be underserved.
Your Committees find that Hawaii has a shortage of approximately eight hundred doctors and almost all other types of primary care and behavioral health care workers. This shortage is most acute for those on the neighbor islands and in rural areas. Your Committees further find that health care providers inclined to remain in Hawaii to practice face cost-of-living challenges that are exacerbated by heavy student loan debt. Your Committees note that one of the fastest and least expensive methods for recruiting health care providers to the State is through loan repayment.
Your Committees also find that the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii has successfully administered the Hawaii State Loan Repayment Program since 2012. The Program has helped forty-six health care providers since its inception, nearly two-thirds of whom continue to work in underserved areas of the State. Continued funding of this Program will encourage more health care professionals to continue working in medically underserved areas of the State, which will help reduce the pressing need for health care workers in those areas.
Your Committees have amended this measure by:
(1) Changing the appropriation to an unspecified amount;
(2) Changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and
(3) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.
As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Lower & Higher Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2254, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2254, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Lower & Higher Education,
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____________________________ JUSTIN H. WOODSON, Chair |
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____________________________ JOHN M. MIZUNO, Chair |
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