Bill Text: HI HB872 | 2013 | Regular Session | Amended

---

Bill Title: Emergency Appropriation; Nursing Facility Sustainability Program Special Fund ($)

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Passed) 2013-04-17 - Act 013, 4/16/2013 (Gov. Msg. No. 1113). [HB872 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2013-HB872-Amended.html

---

 

 

STAND. COM. REP. NO. 879

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 872

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred H.B. No. 872 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN EMERGENCY APPROPRIATION TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES FROM THE NURSING FACILITY SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAM SPECIAL FUND,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to make an emergency appropriation for fiscal year 2012-2013 out of the nursing facility sustainability program special fund to be used in accordance with the authorized purposes of the nursing facility sustainability program special fund, including the reimbursement of monies advanced for those purposes in fiscal year 2012-2013 from the health care payments program.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services, Hawaii Long Term Care Association, Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, Healthcare Association of Hawaii, and Pearl City Nursing Home.

 

     Your Committee finds that the nursing facility sustainability program special fund was established by Act 156, Session Laws of Hawaii 2012, to help fund increasing health care costs for Medicaid enrollees in private nursing facilities.  However, because of a technical omission, monies in the special fund could not be expended as intended.  Instead, monies from the health care payments program were used to make supplemental payments to nursing facilities so that payments would not be delayed.

 

     Accordingly, your Committee finds that this emergency appropriation is necessary to reimburse the monies advanced from the health care payments program and to continue to make timely supplemental payments to nursing facilities from the nursing facility sustainability program special fund for the rest of the fiscal year.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 872, and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Human Services,

 

		____________________________ SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair