S_HHS_2023A 05/03/2023 11:17:18 AM Committee Summary

Senator Fields, prime bill sponsor, presented House Bill 23-1223 concerning establishing a task force to coordinate the distribution of existing and new grants to reduce youth violence, suicide, and delinquency risk for target communities.

Committee members asked the panel questions

Ms. Brianna Buentello, representing Stand for Children Colorado, testified in support of the bill.

Committee members asked questions of Ms. Buentello.

Senator Fields provided closing remarks.

Chris Sykes introduced Dr. Idalia Massa-Carroll, the appointee to the Medical Services Board. The appointment letter may be found in Attachment A. Dr. Massa-Carroll introduced herself and discussed her reasons for wanting to serve on the board. Committee members made comments to the appointee.

Senator Bridges and Senator Gardner, co-prime bill sponsors, presented House Bill 23-1269 concerning enacting measures to better understand the behavioral health needs of children and youth, and creates a cash fund to provide additional resources to providers serving children and youth with more intensive needs.

Senator Bridges provided closing remarks.

Senator Hansen and Senator Roberts, co-prime bill sponsors, presented House Bill 23-1303 concerning several changes to the regulation of insurance regarding impaired or insolvent insurers including: changing the priority of distribution of insurance claims paid from an insurer's estate in the event of the insurer's liquidation. Specifically, class 1 distribution priority payments will include payments that an impaired or insolvent insurer owes to the risk adjustment program that are necessary to prevent another insurer from becoming impaired or insolvent. This adjustment is in effect through June 30, 2026. The bill also makes changes to the “Life and Health Insurance Protection Association Act” to:
· add health maintenance organizations (HMOs) as members of the Colorado Life and Health Insurance Protection Association and subject HMOs to assessments from the association;
· allocate responsibility for long-term care insurance assessments between health insurance and life insurance association members; and
· specify that the act does not provide coverage to a person who acquires rights to receive, or to a payee or beneficiary that transfers its rights in, a structured settlement factoring transaction, as defined in federal law, regardless of when the transaction occurred.

Committee members asked the bill sponsors questions.

Senator Roberts provided closing remarks.

Committee members provided closing remarks.

Senator Roberts and Senator Will, co-prime bill sponsors, presented House Bill 23-1226 concerning requiring hospitals to disclose additional information for the purposes of the hospital expenditure report, which the bill renames the hospital transparency report, produced by the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF). The new reporting requirements include details on specific revenue and expenditure streams, including historical data. HCPF may enforce data collection procedures through corrective action plans or fines. Where HCPF determines a hospital’s noncompliance is knowing or willful or there is a repeated pattern of noncompliance, HCPF may set a fine amount up to $20,000 per week until the hospital takes corrective action. The bill requires also hospitals to provide patients with a plain language description of the services billed and disclose that the patient has the right to further billed services information.

Committee members asked the panel questions.

Dr. Ge Bai, representing themself, testified in support of the bill.

The committee recessed.