By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, March 27 The centerpiece bill of the House GOP health care reform plan was bumped from the debate calendar Tuesday and referred to the Appropriations Committee.
House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, said it was his decision to call for the motion to refer the bill, which was passed out quickly last week in an Appropriations subcommittee and sped to the floor over protests from the Kansas Health Policy Authority.
Asked if House substitute for Senate Bill 11 would be worked this session, Neufeld said: “Why don”t we make that a guessing question.”
Neufeld said the bill would be discussed later in the House GOP caucus to see what level of support it might have, if it were to hit the floor.
“We will talk about it in caucus and see what the thoughts are,” he said.
Neufeld met privately Monday with Marcia Nielsen, executive director of the health policy authority.
Nielsen had been waging a campaign against the bill, which she described last week during its hearing as “too much, too fast, too secret.”
The 58-page bill had a long list of things the health policy authority would have been expected to do including seeking various federal waivers to be used toward accomplishing the bill”s goal of creating a pilot program that essentially would have set the stage for privatizing the Medicaid program.
Rep. Jeff Colyer, R-Overland Park, one of the measure”s chief authors, worked Tuesday on various amendments for the bill, which he said among other things would have removed the section dealing with the Medicaid waivers, making the bill more “broad.”
“We”re all trying to work on things that are broad, that at least can get on the agenda,” he said. “We just ran out of time.”
Neufeld said several bills were moved off the House calendar Tuesday after members spent all day and into the evening working bills to meet legislative deadlines.
“People were tired tonight,” he said, shortly after 7 p.m. “I didn”t want to put them through that.”
House Democrats had earlier expressed concern about the bill, so had key Republicans in the Senate. The governor also weighed in against it.
Various recommendations by the health policy authority”s Health for All Kansans Steering Committee have been introduced as bills in the Senate and House, including Senate Bill 309. Neufeld said those proposals are still alive.
“There will be an effort to pull all that together and get that passed,” Neufeld said.