Bill Text: HI HB656 | 2013 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Health Care; Health Care Transformation Program

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 10-0)

Status: (Passed) 2013-07-02 - Act 224, 6/27/2013 (Gov. Msg. No. 1327). [HB656 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2013-HB656-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 924

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 656

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Health and Commerce and Consumer Protection, to which was referred H.B. No. 656, H.D. 2, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH CARE ADMINISTRATIVE UNIFORMITY,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish within the Office of the Governor a temporary program specially targeted to initiate and facilitate the health care transformation occurring in Hawaii vis a vis the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and associated changes in the health care industry.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Governor's Office, Healthcare Association of Hawaii, Hawaii Health Information Corporation, and Hawaii Medical Service Association.

 

     Your Committees find that the State provides or pays for health insurance for nearly forty percent of the population.  Your Committees also find that increases in premiums for health insurance coverage greatly impact not only the subscribers, but also businesses and the overall economy of the State.  With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the state of health care in Hawaii is undergoing a dramatic transformation.  As a result, your Committees find it necessary to establish and temporarily place in the Office of the Governor the health care transformation program, which shall consider a broad range of initiatives, issues, and strategies, including:

 

     (1)  Standards, measures, and goals to evaluate the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care services;

 

     (2)  Fair and efficient payment models for health care services;

 

     (3)  Streamlined authorization procedures for health care services;

 

     (4)  Improvement and expansion of the use of information technologies to organize, store, safeguard, exchange, and report clinical, cost, educational, technical, administrative, regulatory, and other health care-related data;

 

     (5)  Improvement and promotion of the establishment and use of cost-effective preferred drug lists; and

 

     (6)  Any other issue, solution, or initiative necessary or appropriate to further the principal mission of the program.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Clarifying the purpose of the Act's focus on the study of processes, measures, and other matters directed at improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care service, standardization of processes, reducing administrative burdens facing health care providers, and supporting innovation;

 

     (2)  Clarifying one of the Governor's duties under the health care transformation program to identify processes, measures, and goals to evaluate and improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care services;

 

     (3)  Adding a directive to the health care transformation program to examine opportunities for administrative uniformity or standardization of processes;

 

     (4)  Inserting language to require the Governor to submit a final report on the health care transformation program to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2015;

 

     (5)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2013; and

 

     (6)  Making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Commerce and Consumer Protection that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 656, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 656, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

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

 

____________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair		____________________________ JOSH GREEN, Chair