By Dave Ranney and Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, April 3
Members of a House-Senate conference committee agreed Tuesday evening to the session”s most significant health-care legislation, but only after making the 86-page document longer still by rolling in a variety of other bills during the course of a three-hour negotiation.
The agreement on
House substitute for Senate Bill 11
came late enough that aides to House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, said he decided to postpone having the chamber vote on the conference committee report until lawmakers return later this month for the wrap-up session. The Senate won”t vote on the report until after the House does.
Senate members of the conference committee were Sens. Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer; Jim Barnett, R-Emporia; and Laura Kelly, D-Topeka. House members were Reps. Bob Bethell, R-Alden; Jeff Colyer, R-Overland Park; and Jerry Henry, D-Cummings.
The bill, already thick, grew denser as the House and Senate members negotiated through a list of previously stalled bills each side wanted to add to it in order to keep them alive in the face of Tuesday”s deadline for finishing the regular session. Sought by the House but not included in the measure was
House Bill 2418
, which would have created new licensing distinctions between specialty and general hospitals.
Bethell, who is chairman of the House social services budget committee, warned senators to expect a proviso from the House in the Omnibus Appropriations bill during the wrap-session instructing the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to report its recommendations on the hospital definitions for consideration by next year”s Legislature.
“There”s a great deal of interest in this bill in the House,” Bethell, who led the House conferees, said.
But the Senate rejected a similar bill last year, Umbarger responded.
Bethell asked Umbarger to run a separate hospital-definition bill in the Senate.
Umbarger declined. “We”re awfully busy,” he said.
Barnett, chairman of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, assured Bethell that he would hold hearings on a hospital definition bill early in the 2008 legislative session.
Here”s what was added to House substitute for Senate Bill 11:
*
SB 178
, allowing KDHE to expand allowable uses of confidential data in the Kansas Cancer Registry to allow follow-up on cancer cases for public health purposes.
Also accepted was modified language from
HB 2266
, which had been folded into SB 178, encouraging obstetricians, nurses and midwives when practical to advise patients more than six months pregnant of the benefits of donating their infants” umbilical cords for use in blood stem cell transplants.
*
House Bill 2483
, expanding the state”s newborn screening tests from four to 29; and also relaxing oversight requirements for out-of-state physical therapists working in Kansas.
*
House Bill 2531
, allowing pharmacy students and interns to vaccinate people over age 18; and creating new requirements for distributors of prescription drugs.
*
House Bill 2237
, easing licensure requirements for out-of-state nursing home administrators who move to Kansas.
*
House Bill 2133
, establishing procedures for resolving disputes between the State Fire Marshall”s Office and hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
The conferees also agreed to minor changes in the underlying language of SB 11 dealing with small business association health insurance plans, intending to assure that they are subject to the same regulations and oversight as other insurance plans.
With the agreement, SB 11 emerged as the vehicle for
recommended legislation by the Kansas Health Policy Authority”s Health for All Kansans Steering Committee.
Afterward, Bethell praised the conference committee”s efforts.
“What this bill does, I think, is get us to look the future in a way that lets us make some changes that will make health care more available, more accessible and more affordable,” Bethell said.
Umbarger agreed. “We plowed a lot of ground tonight,” he said.
-Dave Ranney and Mike Shields are staff writers for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. They can be reached at 785-233-5443.