STAND. COM. REP. NO.1230

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2001

RE: H.B. No. 284

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health and Human Services, to which was referred H.B. No. 284, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to make an appropriation to hire thirty full-time registered nurses for public schools.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health (DOH), Department of Education, and Hawaii Nurses' Association.

Your Committee finds that public school students presently lack adequate health care while in school. The consequences affect a sick or injured student as well as the entire school. A sick student may be a sign of other problems at home such as neglect. An injured student going untreated while in school aggravates the injury. This measure would fund the hiring of thirty full-time nurses, each to be assigned by the DOH to a public school complex.

St. Francis Medical Center has the State's only outpatient renal dialysis center. Your Committee further finds that the Center needs public funds to construct a new renal dialysis facility.

Your Committee further finds that a significant number of individuals in the State are unable to receive necessary health care services due to overly restrictive federal and state regulations. Many of these individuals are persons who derive their income solely or largely from Social Security and have terminal, debilitating, or life-threatening illnesses. Due to these unwieldy regulations, some persons must spend nearly half of their monthly income to qualify for Medicaid, while others cannot afford to "spend-down" and therefore must do without critical health care, including necessary treatment and services for sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and family health services. Section 346-14(16), Hawaii Revised Statutes, relating to the medically needy program, allows the State to appropriate funds to expand coverage to persons who are above the Medicaid income level but are low income and deemed "medically needy".

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Increasing the number of nurses to be hired from thirty to thirty-six;

(2) Inserting an appropriation as a grant-in-aid for the construction of facilities to expand the renal dialysis program of St. Francis Medical Center; and

(3) Inserting a purpose section and making an appropriation of matching state Medicaid funds to raise the income eligibility standard of the medically needy program.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health and Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 284, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 284, H.D. 1, 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 and Human Services,

____________________________

DAVID MATSUURA, Chair