Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee- House
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Transcript
1 document
Bills discussed (51)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1004
· 9 mentions in transcript, chapter, agenda
Matched: “…to Public Health Chair Cesarcorum. We will get started with House Bill 1004. I know that has an amendment. The amendment's been adopted…”
|
TO REQUIRE MEDICAID COVERAGE FOR POSTPARTUM MOTHERS FOR ONE YEAR AFTER GIVING BIRTH. | Pilkington | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1245
Act 432
· 4 mentions in transcript, chapter, agenda
Matched: “She's asking we concur in Senate amendment, uh, for HB 1245. You're recognized to identify yourself for the record and…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS BEHAVIOR ANALYST REGISTRATION ACT. | Clowney | Notification that HB1245 is now Act 432 |
|
HB1257
Act 434
· 4 mentions in chapter, transcript, agenda
Matched: “HB1257 L. Johnson TO REMOVE THE LIMITATION OF THE PRACTICE OF NEUR…”
|
TO REMOVE THE LIMITATION OF THE PRACTICE OF NEUROPSYCHOLOGY FROM TECHNICIANS EMPLOYED BY PSYCHOLOGISTS; AND … | L. Johnson | Notification that HB1257 is now Act 434 |
|
HB1767
Act 863
· 4 mentions in agenda, chapter, transcript
Matched: “…SEARCH ACTIVITIES WHILE THE APPLICATION IS BEING PROCESSED. HB1767 L. Johnson TO ABOLISH THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES ADVISO…”
|
TO ABOLISH THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES ADVISORY COUNCIL; AND TO CREATE THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES … | L. Johnson | Notification that HB1767 is now Act 863 |
|
HB1817
Act 865
· 3 mentions in agenda, transcript, chapter
Matched: “…ION OF MEDICAL RECORDS UNLESS CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS ARE MET. HB1817 L. Johnson TO ESTABLISH ELIJAH'S LAW IN ARKANSAS; AND TO RE…”
|
TO ESTABLISH ELIJAH'S LAW IN ARKANSAS; AND TO REQUIRE THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND THE … | L. Johnson | Notification that HB1817 is now Act 865 |
|
HB1142
Act 859
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NCY MEDICATION KITS. REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1142 A. Brown TO CREATE THE REPRODUCTIVE EMPOWERMENT AND SUPPORT…”
|
TO CREATE THE REPRODUCTIVE EMPOWERMENT AND SUPPORT THROUGH OPTIMAL RESTORATION (RESTORE) ACT. | A. Brown | Notification that HB1142 is now Act 859 |
|
HB1164
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1164 J. Mayberry TO ALLOW A PHYSICIAN OR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER TO…”
|
TO ALLOW A PHYSICIAN OR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER TO OFFER COGNITIVE ASSESSMENTS FOR CERTAIN PATIENTS; AND … | J. Mayberry | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1332
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ADMINISTER A GRANT PROGRAM FOR SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CENTERS. HB1332 Pilkington TO REQUIRE THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM TO COVE…”
|
TO REQUIRE THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM TO EVALUATE CLAIMS FOR DIAGNOSES FREQUENCY OF OBESITY-RELATED CONDITIONS … | Pilkington | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1543
Act 631
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1543 Underwood TO ESTABLISH THE WORKFORCE EXPERIENCE OPPORTUNITI…”
|
TO ESTABLISH THE WORKFORCE EXPERIENCE OPPORTUNITIES ACT OF 2025. | Underwood | Notification that HB1543 is now Act 631 |
|
HB1592
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TABLISH THE WORKFORCE EXPERIENCE OPPORTUNITIES ACT OF 2025. HB1592 J. Mayberry TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS ALZHEIMER'S AND DEMENTIA…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS ALZHEIMER'S AND DEMENTIA PUBLIC HEALTH ACT. | J. Mayberry | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1653
Act 636
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION IN NOTICES OF ADVERSE DECISIONS. HB1653 Cavenaugh TO SET STANDARDS FOR THE LICENSING AND REGULATION…”
|
TO SET STANDARDS FOR LICENSING AND REGULATION OF PSYCHIATRIC RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT FACILITIES; AND TO DECLARE … | Cavenaugh | Notification that HB1653 is now Act 636 |
|
HB1677
Act 637
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…HOLOGISTS. RE-REFERRED TO COMMITTEE Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1677 Bentley TO AUTHORIZE ALCOHOL AND DRUG ABUSE TREATMENT PROGR…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE ALCOHOL AND DRUG ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAMS TO MAINTAIN EMERGENCY MEDICATION KITS. | Bentley | Notification that HB1677 is now Act 637 |
|
HB1723
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…AGE FOR POSTPARTUM MOTHERS FOR ONE YEAR AFTER GIVING BIRTH. HB1723 Pilkington TO AMEND INITIATED ACT 1 OF 2000, ALSO KNOWN AS…”
|
TO AMEND INITIATED ACT 1 OF 2000, ALSO KNOWN AS THE TOBACCO SETTLEMENT PROCEEDS ACT; … | Pilkington | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1751
Act 640
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1751 Underwood TO REQUIRE AN APPLICANT FOR TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE…”
|
TO REQUIRE AN APPLICANT FOR TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES PROGRAM BENEFITS TO ENGAGE IN … | Underwood | Notification that HB1751 is now Act 640 |
|
HB1791
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…O CREATE THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE. HB1791 C. Cooper TO CLARIFY THAT THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AND…”
|
TO CLARIFY THAT THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AND THE UNITED NATIONS DO NOT HAVE JURISDICTION … | C. Cooper | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1795
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…REPEAL THE ARKANSAS PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCY ACT OF 1975. HB1795 A. Brown TO CREATE THE FERTILITY CLINIC LICENSURE ACT. HB18…”
|
TO CREATE THE FERTILITY CLINIC LICENSURE ACT. | A. Brown | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1816
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…PRODUCT TO SELL THE COMPOUNDED PRODUCT TO CERTAIN ENTITIES. HB1816 L. Johnson TO PROHIBIT HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND HEALTHCARE…”
|
TO PROHIBIT HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND HEALTHCARE INSURERS FROM USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE DELIVERY OF … | L. Johnson | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1818
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…SH A STATEWIDE ANAPHYLAXIS POLICY FOR CHILDCARE FACILITIES. HB1818 L. Johnson TO CREATE THE MEDICAID PROVIDER-LED CARE TRANSPA…”
|
TO CREATE THE MEDICAID PROVIDER-LED CARE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT. | L. Johnson | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1840
Act 967
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1840 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE MEDICAID PROVIDER-LED ORGANIZED CAR…”
|
TO AMEND THE MEDICAID PROVIDER-LED ORGANIZED CARE ACT TO ENSURE THAT SEDATION DENTISTRY IS COVERED … | L. Johnson | Notification that HB1840 is now Act 967 |
|
HB1841
Act 1021
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…DENTISTRY IS COVERED BY RISK-BASED PROVIDER ORGANIZATIONS. HB1841 L. Johnson TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS REVENUE INVESTMENT IN VIT…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS REVENUE INVESTMENT IN VITAL EMS SYSTEMS (ARRIVES) ACT; AND TO CREATE … | L. Johnson | Notification that HB1841 is now Act 1021 |
|
SB278
Act 438
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…VE AUTHORITY TO ENFORCE OR IMPLEMENT ACTIONS IN THIS STATE. SB278 J. English TO REPEAL THE STATUTES CONCERNING THE OCCUPATION…”
|
TO REPEAL THE STATUTES CONCERNING THE OCCUPATIONAL AUTHORIZATION AND LICENSURE OF CERTAIN EMPLOYMENT OFFICES AND … | J. English | Notification that SB278 is now Act 438 |
|
SB367
Act 735
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB367 Irvin TO REPEAL THE SMALL BUSINESS REVOLVING LOAN FUND FOR…”
|
TO REPEAL THE SMALL BUSINESS REVOLVING LOAN FUND FOR POLLUTION CONTROL AND PREVENTION TECHNOLOGIES ACT; … | Irvin | Notification that SB367 is now Act 735 |
|
HB1008
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…OLOGY REPORTING ACT. DEFERRED BILLS Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1008 A. Collins TO REQUIRE MEDICAID COVERAGE FOR POSTPARTUM MOTH…”
|
TO REQUIRE MEDICAID COVERAGE FOR POSTPARTUM MOTHERS FOR ONE YEAR AFTER GIVING BIRTH. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1010
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…AGE FOR POSTPARTUM MOTHERS FOR ONE YEAR AFTER GIVING BIRTH. HB1010 A. Collins TO SET THE REIMBURSEMENT RATE IN THE ARKANSAS ME…”
|
TO SET THE REIMBURSEMENT RATE IN THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM FOR MATERNAL HEALTH SERVICES. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1011
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM FOR MATERNAL HEALTH SERVICES. HB1011 A. Collins TO CREATE THE RESTORE ROE ACT; AND TO RESTORE A…”
|
TO CREATE THE RESTORE ROE ACT; AND TO RESTORE A WOMAN'S ACCESS TO ABORTION SERVICES. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1012
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ACT; AND TO RESTORE A WOMAN'S ACCESS TO ABORTION SERVICES. HB1012 A. Collins TO REQUIRE THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM TO EXTE…”
|
TO REQUIRE THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM TO EXTEND ELIGIBILITY TO CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS FOR FAMILY PLANNING … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1013
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…BILITY TO CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS FOR FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES. HB1013 Hudson TO PROTECT FERTILITY TREATMENT RIGHTS IN THIS STATE.…”
|
TO PROTECT FERTILITY TREATMENT RIGHTS IN THIS STATE. | Hudson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1029
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…Hudson TO PROTECT FERTILITY TREATMENT RIGHTS IN THIS STATE. HB1029 D. Garner TO SET THE REIMBURSEMENT RATE IN THE ARKANSAS MED…”
|
TO SET THE REIMBURSEMENT RATE IN THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM FOR MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES AND … | D. Garner | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1032
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…R MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES AND SERVICES RELATED TO ADDICTION. HB1032 A. Collins TO BAN CONVERSION THERAPY. HB1132 Pilkington TO…”
|
TO BAN CONVERSION THERAPY. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1132
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TO ADDICTION. HB1032 A. Collins TO BAN CONVERSION THERAPY. HB1132 Pilkington TO INCREASE ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE SERVICES PROVID…”
|
TO INCREASE ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE SERVICES PROVIDED BY ADVANCED PRACTICE REGISTERED NURSES; AND TO AMEND … | Pilkington | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1224
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…RIPTIVE AUTHORITY OF AN ADVANCED PRACTICE REGISTERED NURSE. HB1224 Nazarenko TO AMEND THE AUTOMATIC OCCUPATIONAL LICENSURE FOR…”
|
TO AMEND THE AUTOMATIC OCCUPATIONAL LICENSURE FOR OUT-OF-STATE LICENSURE ACT; AND TO APPLY THE AUTOMATIC … | Nazarenko | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1244
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NSURE FOR OUT-OF-STATE LICENSURE ACT TO MASSAGE THERAPISTS. HB1244 K. Brown TO AMEND THE REQUIREMENTS TO OBTAIN A CERTIFICATE…”
|
TO AMEND THE REQUIREMENTS TO OBTAIN A CERTIFICATE OF FULL INDEPENDENT PRACTICE AUTHORITY BY A … | K. Brown | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1270
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CERTIFIED NURSE PRACTITIONER OR CLINICAL NURSE SPECIALIST. HB1270 Pilkington TO ESTABLISH LICENSURE FOR PRESCRIBED PEDIATRIC…”
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TO ESTABLISH A PRESCRIBED PEDIATRIC EXTENDED CARE PILOT PROGRAM THROUGH A SECTION 1115 MEDICAID DEMONSTRATION … | Pilkington | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1277
Act 706
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…AM TO REIMBURSE PRESCRIBED PEDIATRIC EXTENDED CARE CENTERS. HB1277 Gramlich TO AMEND PAYMENTS FOR CORRECTIVE ACTION REGARDING…”
|
TO AMEND PAYMENTS FOR CORRECTIVE ACTION REGARDING PETROLEUM STORAGE TANKS. | J. Boyd | Notification that HB1277 is now Act 706 |
|
HB1302
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CENSURE OF MASSAGE THERAPISTS; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. HB1302 L. Johnson TO ADD DUCHENNE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY TO THE UNIVER…”
|
TO ADD DUCHENNE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY TO THE UNIVERSAL NEWBORN SCREENING ACT. | L. Johnson | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1401
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TS FOR CORRECTIVE ACTION REGARDING PETROLEUM STORAGE TANKS. HB1401 Pilkington TO INCLUDE ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY SERVICES WIT…”
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TO INCLUDE ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY SERVICES WITHIN THE MEDICAID PROVIDER-LED ORGANIZED CARE ACT. | Pilkington | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1506
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…PSYCHOLOGICAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL TEST MATERIALS OR TEST DATA. HB1506 Andrews TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC OFFICERS AND EMP…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES; AND TO PROHIBIT A PUBLIC EMPLOYER … | Andrews | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1530
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1530 Achor TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "SPECIALTY HOSPITAL" RELAT…”
|
TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "SPECIALTY HOSPITAL" RELATING TO THE ASSESSMENT FEE ON HOSPITALS UNDER … | Achor | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1532
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…MEMBERSHIP DUES FROM THE COMPENSATION OF A PUBLIC EMPLOYEE. HB1532 L. Johnson TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS RARE DISEASE ADVISORY COU…”
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TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS RARE DISEASE ADVISORY COUNCIL. | L. Johnson | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
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HB1554
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NG LOAN FUND. PENDING FISCAL IMPACT Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1554 A. Brown TO CREATE THE ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY REP…”
|
TO CREATE THE ASSISTED REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY REPORTING ACT. | A. Brown | Recommended for study in the Interim by the … |
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HB1566
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TE THE ARKANSAS RARE DISEASE ADVISORY COUNCIL. Page 3 of 4 HB1566 McClure TO REQUIRE ADOPTION OF A STATEWIDE PRACTICAL NURSIN…”
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TO REQUIRE ADOPTION OF A STATEWIDE PRACTICAL NURSING PROGRAM CORE CURRICULUM TO INCREASE CONSISTENCY IN … | McClure | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1588
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…LUM TO INCREASE CONSISTENCY IN PRACTICAL NURSING EDUCATION. HB1588 McAlindon TO REQUIRE APPROVAL OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY BEFOR…”
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TO REQUIRE APPROVAL OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES SEEKS OR … | McAlindon | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1718
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…LAWS THROUGH THE REINSTATEMENT OF EMPLOYMENT CERTIFICATES. HB1718 Gramlich TO ESTABLISH STANDARDS FOR SURGICAL SMOKE EVACUATI…”
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TO ESTABLISH STANDARDS FOR SURGICAL SMOKE EVACUATION IN HEALTHCARE FACILITIES LICENSED IN THIS STATE. | Gramlich | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1731
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…RECOGNIZE A PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT AS A PRIMARY CARE PROVIDER. HB1731 Vaught TO STRENGTHEN CHILD LABOR LAWS THROUGH THE REINSTATE…”
|
TO STRENGTHEN CHILD LABOR LAWS THROUGH THE REINSTATEMENT OF EMPLOYMENT CERTIFICATES. | Vaught | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HB1762
Act 1009
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…EVACUATION IN HEALTHCARE FACILITIES LICENSED IN THIS STATE. HB1762 Hall TO REQUIRE REVOCATION OF A PERMIT FOR THE DISPOSAL OF…”
|
TO REQUIRE REVOCATION OF A PERMIT FOR THE DISPOSAL OF INDUSTRIAL WASTE IN AN AGRICULTURAL … | Hall | Notification that HB1762 is now Act 1009 |
|
HB1781
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…OR PASTORAL APPLICATION FOR A CERTAIN NUMBER OF VIOLATIONS. HB1781 Crawford TO AUTHORIZE THE LICENSURE OF CLINICS, HEALTH CENT…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE THE LICENSURE OF CLINICS, HEALTH CENTERS, OR OTHER FACILITIES IN WHICH A PREGNANCY … | Crawford | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1801
Act 961
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1801 K. Moore TO AUTHORIZE AN OUTSOURCING FACILITY OF LEGEND DRU…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE AN OUTSOURCING FACILITY OF LEGEND DRUGS AND CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES THAT COMPOUNDS A PRODUCT … | K. Moore | Notification that HB1801 is now Act 961 |
|
HB1819
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1819 L. Johnson TO REQUIRE THE STATE REGISTRAR OF VITAL RECORDS…”
|
TO REQUIRE THE STATE REGISTRAR OF VITAL RECORDS TO COORDINATE WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS … | L. Johnson | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
SB168
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…G UTILIZATION REVIEW BOARD TO INCLUDE PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS. SB168 Rice TO ESTABLISH A STATE EXAMINATION FOR LICENSURE OF MASS…”
|
TO ESTABLISH A STATE EXAMINATION FOR LICENSURE OF MASSAGE THERAPISTS. | Rice | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB187
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…EASES COSTS TO THE STATE FOR THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM. SB187 Irvin TO AMEND THE COMPOSITION OF THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID DRU…”
|
TO AMEND THE COMPOSITION OF THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID DRUG UTILIZATION REVIEW BOARD TO INCLUDE PHYSICIAN … | Irvin | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB257
Act 515
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB257 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE MEDICAID FAIRNESS ACT; TO EXTEND THE…”
|
TO AMEND THE MEDICAID FAIRNESS ACT; TO EXTEND THE APPEAL PERIOD FOR PROVIDERS IN THE … | C. Penzo | Notification that SB257 is now Act 515 |
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Good morning. Welcome to public health. Chair sees a quorum. We will get started with House Bill 1004. I know that has an amendment. The amendment's been adopted. We're going to hand that amendment out to staff since it's not, or staff is going to hand that amendment out since it's not been engrossed and then you'll be recognized to present your bill. Give us just a second. No problem.
Speaker 7
0:30
Chairman, in the essence of time, would you like me to just
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
0:52
start, since it already has, the amendment's been engrossed, so we have nothing to vote on, would you just like me to start? Yes, sir. You can go ahead
Ben Washington
Unverified
1:00
and identify yourself for the record, and you're recognized to present.
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:03
Sure. State Representative Aaron Pilkington, District 45, Johnson and Pope County. I'm sure most of you have heard about this bill for a long time. It was one of the first ones filed, HB 1004, which is the 12-month postpartum expansion bill. As you know, Arkansas is the only state out of 50 states that has not extended this program to this population of women from 138 to 200 of the federal poverty level.
I had this bill two sessions ago. The understanding was it wasn't necessary that they were already covered. We did special language in the fiscal session that required a report from DHS that found that one in three women actually were not getting covered. They were losing coverage. The most recent report actually showed that that's now increased to four out of ten women in Arkansas. Obviously, there was a concern about duplication of services. That's why this bill has the auto-enrollment into our home if that's where they need to be at, which actually has a better match rate than traditional Medicaid. So that's why that's in this bill.
But then once again, they're still concerned about the state spend on this program versus, you know, the tight budget we have and we have to have a balanced budget. So me as well as other advocates in this space for maternal health looked at other ways that we could potentially fill that gap. And what we did in this amendment that we adopted on Tuesday is allowing to use CHIP funding through an HSI program to fund the state portion of this. So this approach is a cost neutral to the state requiring no new state dollars.
The CHIP HSI fund has plenty of available funds for this. CHIP allows states a portion of their spending to develop health service initiatives or HSIs, the most flexible opportunity to fund projects that aim to improve health of low income children. HSI's enable states to pull federal trip matching funds that are not directly tied to eligibility and can direct supportive services. So that's what we've done. This is mimicked off of what I believe Missouri has done as well. And so that's essentially what we're trying to do to fill this gap. And so I'm just trying to, you know, obviously we did a lot of work with Healthy Moms, Healthy
Babies, but there's always still more work to do. And I honestly, after that bill was done, I felt that I had left these women behind who fall within this category and it did not sit right on my heart to not advocate for this group of women to try to help them get coverage and so I've worked and heard the concerns and I've tried to address all of them the best I can and that's why this bill some ways feels like a Frankenstein bill compared to what it was two years ago but in doing that I tried to take into consideration so we're not duplicating services and we're not creating no new state
funds. But that will take any questions. Any questions by
the committee? Representative Bentley, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Chairman. Thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
3:49
you, Representative Pilkington, for your commitment to help women in Arkansas. I appreciate that, moms. So are we going to have to
Speaker 19
3:55
request a waiver? Are we going to have to get
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
3:58
approval? Yes, this will have to be approved by HHS. So if it's not approved by HHS, then we're in the same position. But I figure why not go and ask and try to get approval for this? Follow-up. You
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
4:10
recognize. So, and I know we just did our Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies,
and I'm hoping that our community health workers will really do a better job of getting this woman where they need to be. So do you think, given what we did with this community health care workers, is it necessary to do this, or what
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
4:25
are your thoughts on that? I just really want to get your... Sure. Well, I mean, community health workers do more than just help with enrolling and eligibility. I mean, there's a whole plethora that they do, and they've become essentially an essential part of the health care group around pregnant women. So I think this, if anything, makes it easier for them so they can make sure that they're getting other services they need and helping them coordinate their care.
But once again, I mean, if you're a community health worker and you go have a woman who is 138 to 200 percent of federal poverty level, they're going to say, well, sorry, I can do everything I can't do for you, but there's no Medicaid coverage for that. population. Now, if you lived in 49 other states, in the District of Columbia, you could get it, but just not
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
5:07
here in Arkansas, unfortunately. So one last final. So they could help get them enrolled on the federal reimbursement for their insurance coverage, right? So would they get their premiums covered
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
5:20
plan, but you can go to the Kaiser Institute. You can put in where you are on the federal poverty level and what state you live in and what that subsidy would be, but, you know, so think about one of these women who fall in this category. They're making $20,000 a year, and they're going to be asked to pay a $60 to $80 premium a month for this, and so I think if there's funds available that are not being used, why should we not allow them to use this? Because I think living off $20,000 is very hard to do,
especially with a newborn and how expensive it is to have a child right now, especially with inflation, that even with that subsidized plan, it's still very hard for them to get insurance. And so that's why I'm supporting this bill and hope you will too, Representative Bentley. Thank you, Representative Wilkerton. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Any additional questions by the committee? Seeing none, we do have some folks that are signed up to speak for the bill. First, House Bill 1004, McKenzie Foreman
is signed up to speak for the bill. Ms. Foreman, if you will, identify yourself for the record and
Speaker 36
6:42
you'll be recognized for your testimony. Please hit your mic button. That works. Good morning. I first want to thank you guys for hearing my testimony. My name is Mackenzie Foreman. I am a licensed certified social worker here in Little Rock, Arkansas.
I am certified in perinatal mental health, and I'm the owner of Holding Space Counseling, which specializes in maternal mental health. So today I am here to testify in support of House Bill 1004. Maternal health cannot be separated from maternal mental health. As social workers, as a social worker, I see firsthand the gaps in care that leave women vulnerable. Today I want to share some of those stories with you all and how these women's lives were directly impacted by Medicaid policies that have failed them.
These cases are not rare. Research tells us that women are at risk for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders from conception through 12 months postpartum, at least 22 months for those that carry full term of 10 months, 40 weeks. Yet Medicaid coverage too often ends abruptly, creating dangerous gaps in care. We know that untreated maternal mental health conditions lead to poor birth outcomes,
increased maternal mortality, and long-term harm to both mother and child. Yet Medicaid disruptions lead to many without care. I've worked with women who have suffered miscarriages, found therapy as they should, and then a month into treatment they find out that their Medicaid has been dropped and they are left without the mental health services that they deserve to continue to process this incredible loss.
I've worked with women who have experienced a traumatic loss, miscarriage, to the point in which they had to deliver their baby dead. And they were forced to endure that without the mental health support that they deserved. I've worked with women who have delivered multiple babies. And having their babies at 25 weeks, their Medicaid was cut off before they even met their full term.
So it was cut off within 60 days, even though she had her baby at 25 weeks. and she too was left without mental health coverage with a pre-existing condition of mental health needs. We have a huge maternal crisis on our hands and we need to do everything that we can to fill the cracks that new moms are falling through. I know that Medicaid is intended to provide essential care, but too often it fails the women who need it the most.
These arbitrary cuts and bureaucratic barriers must end. It is time we treat maternal mental health with the urgency and respect that it deserves. So with that said, I urge you all to support policies ensuring uninterrupted Medicaid coverage for not only maternal mortality, maternal health, but for maternal mental health because we cannot talk about maternal health
without acknowledging maternal mental health as a big part of that journey. So thank you guys for your time and I welcome any questions. Ma'am, thank you for your
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
10:24
testimony. Any questions by the committee? Seeing none, thank you for being here. Thank you.
Next we have Latoya Morgan. Ms. Morgan did not indicate for or against but you're welcome to come to the end of the table and let us know if you're speaking for or against the bill.
Latoya Morgan
Unverified
10:52
Hi, my name is Latoya Morgan, and I am speaking for the bill. You're recognized for your testimony. Thank you so much. I would first of all like to thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to be here. And hopefully my testimony today sways you today. So, my name is Latoya Morgan, and I'm actually an educator in the Little Rock School District. And I am here today as a concerned citizen, not just as a concerned citizen, but as a representative of three precious little girls.
And I want you to remember their names. Caitlin, Kennedy, and Kylie. These three little girls tragically lost their mother, my dear friend. Helena
Speaker 48
11:50
Stanton, just 71 days after giving birth to her baby, Kylie, who was still in
NICU at the time, Helena was admitted to the hospital and unfortunately never came home. She presented with some, like, she couldn't move her hands. She couldn't move her legs. It was hard for her to breathe, and so she had to go to the hospital. The grief and pain our family has experienced
Speaker 49
12:20
since our passing has been profound. And I
Speaker 48
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want to make sure no other family has to endure such a tragedy. That is why I am here today to ask for your support for this bill to extend postpartum care for 12 months.
through Medicaid. Helena was a planner. She had her personal affairs in order, but even with all of her preparation, the unexpected and the unimaginable occurred. Tragically, her story is not unique. For many families, access to critical postpartum care is not just a matter of convenience. It's a matter of life and death. Without sufficient support after childbirth, complications can arise that could be prevented with the proper care and monitoring, because I I also want to add that she was not treated like the sickest person in the hospital.
She was not treated like the sickest person in the hospital. This bill has the potential to save lives, prevents unnecessary tragedy, and provide mothers with the health care they need to ensure both their own well-being and the well-being of their children. For families like mine, this bill will provide a glimmer of hope that no one else would have to face the devastating loss that we have experienced. Please, I urge you to support this bill and help ensure that no mother and child are left vulnerable
during such a critical time. I remember she went to the hospital in October and she left this earth on December the 9th. On November 30th, I actually went to the hospital and I was sharing, you know, something else that had occurred with another friend of ours. And she was like, well, I'm going to keep fighting, is what she said. And unfortunately, she never came home. And as you see, we're still dealing with this, and it's been 10 years.
Latoya Morgan
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14:19
So her baby will be 10 years old in September. Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am, for your testimony. Any
questions by the committee? Seeing none, thank you for being here today. Mr. Chair, I believe that they're
Representative Aaron Pilkington
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14:32
only signed up to speak for the bill, and so I just wonder, in the essence of time, since this is our last meeting before spring break, if maybe we just put them in the record, since there's no here one to speak against this bill. Well, I appreciate that, and we'll allow
the witnesses to decide whether they want to testify
or just be put into the record. Mr. Ben Washington, I believe. You're
Ben Washington
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15:12
recognized to go to the end of the table. If you will, identify yourself for the record, and you're recognized to speak
Speaker 61
15:17
for the bill. My name is Ben Washington, and I'm a representative of Arkansas Agapulcee Legal Justice Network this morning.
I'll be brief. We're here to support this bill. at Arkansas Appalachian Legal Justice Center have been taking up new priorities this session and clearly maternal health is a huge issue in our state. We are very appreciative of what the governor has done with the monotonous bill and the wins that have been able to achieve with that, but we know that there are gaps in coverage that will be covered if this bill can go through.
The approach here is cost-neutral to the state, requiring no new state dollars to be added to this fund. And there's plenty of funding available in the HSI fund to handle postpartum care for women. I'm speaking both as an advocate for maternal health and as someone who almost lost his wife during the birthing process. I know that I'm privileged. I have and had insurance at the time, so I didn't have to go through Medicaid. Had I not had that coverage, I could have very easily lost my wife.
It is something that runs in my wife's family. Our sister went through health complications as well and suffered seizures during childbirth. There are many women of color in the state who are losing their children, losing their lives during childbirth, and this would help bridge those gaps in coverage. CHIP allows states a portion of their spending to develop HSI, the most flexible opportunity to fund projects that aim to improve the health of low-income children.
In my research prior to this, in my role at the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, I worked around Medicaid a lot. And I know that in the rural health care systems, there are very weak opportunities in terms of childbirth and health care networks in those regions. And being able to do anything for new mothers in the state of Arkansas would be helpful, and particularly for our most vulnerable communities. We know that between 10-1-24 and the end of last year,
almost 5,000 women dealt with postpartum conditions, and 39% of them lost coverage during that same period of time. So this bill would help bridge that gap and help more women who are kind of left in the lurch and don't have the coverage at the time. I think that's really all I have to say, but I would really appreciate a good vote on this bill. And thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, sir, for your testimony. Seeing no other questions, thank you for being here today. We have one more person signed up to speak for the bill, Chandra, and I can't make out the last name. She is not here. All right, we will pass over her. All right, seeing no one else signed up to speak for or against the bill, Representative, you're recognized to close for
Representative Aaron Pilkington
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18:21
your bill as amended. Yes, thank you. And I want to thank the citizens who came here to testify to share their story today. I mean, this is real life affecting real people all over the state of Arkansas. And like I said, I mean, we've done so much great work in this space already.
I mean, and so I know for some of you you might think, how much more can we do? But this is just one of those areas where we have found a gap. We've identified the issue. We've gone back and forth trying to figure out ways to get this coverage. And so, and obviously, you know, obviously money's tight here in the state. And so we're always looking for ways to do things. And finding this cost-neutral approach of using this fund that already exists and having to ask permission from HHS, all those things, I think, makes it to where this, to me, is a slam dunk. And for someone who has never slammed dunked in his life, being 5'5",
So give me my first one ever. So with that, I just ask, make a motion, do pass, and appreciate the committee's time. As amended? As amended, yes, sir. That's a
proper motion. Any discussion on the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations, sir. You passed your bill
as amended. Members, we're going to move back to the top of our agenda. Representative
Ben Washington
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19:33
Clowney, are you here? She's asking we concur and send an amendment for HB 1245.
You're recognized to identify yourself for the record and present
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
19:41
your amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nicole Clowney, State Representative, District 21. This is the bill that I brought to you all seems like a long time ago about behavior analysts creating an optional registry for behavior analysts. The Senate did what the Senate does and amended it three times before it got out, but it did, overwhelmingly so, and I just wanted to bring those amendments to you all today. So, Mr. Chair, should I just go one by one through each of the three? All right. So the first amendment.
The first amendment came at the request of the Department of Health. When we created this optional registry, we placed it under the existing psychology board. The original draft that passed through the House asked that two members of that board have a background in behavior analysis. This amendment changed that from two to one. That's all this first amendment did. You can
go through all three of them, and then we'll just concur in
Representative Nicole Clowney
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20:36
the amendments. Second Amendment dealt with the, let's see here, wait, sorry, good to go?
Go ahead and explain them, and then we'll go back and address each one of them individually. Perfect, okay. The Second Amendment had to do with, there were
Representative Nicole Clowney
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20:56
two things that that one did. First, it put a cap on, if you do choose to be on this registry, there are things that you can be fined for, certain violations. It put a cap on what those fines could be at the request of the Senate, and then there was just a typo in the previous version, so we had to replace the word license with registration because nothing in this bill has to do with a license.
This is all optional. The third and final amendment went through and did a little bit more breakdown on fines that the board would be able to levy on somebody who is in violation of this chapter. The previous version just gave the board authority to levy fines. The Senate was concerned with that and wanted to place a cap on what those fines could be. So we went through and did that. And that is about all that we did. So those are the three amendments. Happy to answer any questions on them.
Representative Jack Ladyman
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21:50
All right. Thank you, Representative. We're going to go back to Amendment No. 1. Any
questions on Amendment No. 1? Seeing none, what's the will of the committee? Have a motion to concur in the amendment. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed? Congratulations, we've concurred in Amendment No. 1. Amendment No. 2, any questions? Seeing none, what's the will of the committee? Motion to concur in Amendment No. 2. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed?
Congratulations, you've concurred in Amendment No. 2. Amendment No. 3. What's the will of the committee? All right. Motion to concur in Amendment No. 3. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations, you've concurred in Amendment 1, 2, and 3. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee. Thank you. Representative Johnson, you're recognized to go to the end of the table. Would you like to start with your Senate amendment as well? Yes, Mr. Chairman, if I can. House Bill 1257.
Representative Lee Johnson
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22:50
You're recognized to present your amendment. Members, this amendment clarified some language around how we would reimburse psych techs. So
we had accidentally said in the original version that we were going to reimburse the techs directly. That's not how techs are reimbursed. They're reimbursed through their psychologists. And so this is just clarifying that we're going to reimburse the psychologist for the duties and performance
of the tech. Happy to answer any questions on that. Any questions on the Senate amendment? Amendment.
Seeing none, do you have a motion, Representative? Motion we concur with the amendment.
All right. We have a motion to concur in Senate Amendment No. 1. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations, sir. We concur in Amendment No. 1. Are you prepared to run House Bill 1767? I am. You're recognized to identify yourself for the record, and
you'll be recognized. Representative Lee Johnson, District 47. If I may, Mr. Chair, if I could
Representative Lee Johnson
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23:42
have someone from Department of Health come and sit with me at the table to help me answer any questions. Yes,
sir. Just ask them to identify themselves, and you're recognized.
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
24:07
Hopefully there's not a lot of questions. Members, this is a long bill, and
it looks like it's doing a lot of stuff. It is, but mainly it's reassigning some of the duties. So what we're trying to do in this bill, currently the way EMS is structured, emergency medical services in the Department of Health, is structured as a section of the Board of Health. And so when issues arise with medics, with the ambulance services, those issues are taken specifically to the section, and then those problems get adjudicated by a subcommittee of the general board.
And that's great when there's someone on the Board of Health who has some background in medicine or in prehospital medicine specifically, But there is not always a guarantee that there's someone on the board that can fulfill that. So you create situations at times where you might have a water engineer or a cosmetologist coming in adjudicating an issue with medics. We have in the Board of Health right now, it's a council, the Governor's Advisory Council on EMS. This is a 17-person council that exists, but it doesn't have any regulatory authority.
It really is just there to give advice. And because it's so large, they've really struggled over the years since it was established to get a quorum to have meetings to even create that advice. And so what we're doing in this bill is we are abolishing that large advisory council, creating a new
streamlined EMS committee that will function kind of like orthotics and prosthetics. Is that a fair comparison?
Speaker 87
25:42
Charles Thompson, attorney, Arkansas Department of Health. Rep. Johnson, there's a lot of technical advisory committees we have that have the first-line administrative decision-making function when it comes to disciplinary actions, waivers of that nature. So there's a number of ones that would be comparable to what we're doing
Representative Lee Johnson
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26:00
here with this bill. So essentially, and
I think this is correct, we are now creating a committee that's within the board that will now have that sort of authority that doesn't exist now to give what I would say is
better oversight over EMS. And this is something that we've worked on with the Department of Health and with the Ambulance Association for months, really trying to get the language right. It's big because everywhere there are duties referenced to the section of EMS, everywhere we can, we're trying to now refer them to this new group that we've assembled. And we'd be happy to try to answer any questions on this bill. Any questions by the committee?
Representative Richardson, you're recognized for a question. Thank
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
26:40
you, Mr. Chair. Representative Johnson, the board that the nine people that's going to make
it up, they're only going to be from EMS?
Representative Lee Johnson
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26:49
I'd have to look at the specific makeup. I think we have other representatives, not just from EMS. I think we have
a citizen on there. Okay, that's why I'm going to make sure that there was a citizen. A consumer. I think there's a consumer on there. Yeah. Y'all can Y'all can confirm that if you
Speaker 85
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want, but I'm pretty sure that's correct. Did they confirm that? I didn't see either one of y'all. I gave
Speaker 87
27:12
a head nod. We do have, Representative Richardson, we definitely have, there's a consumer, there's a designee from the Secretary of Health, there's a training educational program member.
There's a number of different people, not just specifically EMS. Thank you. Any additional questions by the committee? Seeing none, is
there anyone in the audience that would like to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none,
Representative, you're recognized to close for your bill. Close for my bill. Make a motion to do pass. That's a proper motion. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed? Congratulations, sir. You've passed your bill. Are you prepared to run House Bill 18-17? I am.
Ben Washington
Unverified
27:50
You're recognized to identify yourself for the record, and
Representative Lee Johnson
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27:55
you'll be recognized to present. Representative Lee Johnson, District 47. Members, anytime
you see a name on a bill, you know there's a story behind it. Elijah was a child that died tragically in 2017 due to a severe allergic reaction at his daycare. No one wants to be caught unprepared, but there was a feeling that if there had been better preparation
on the part of the daycare at the time, that maybe they could have administered some things to maybe save Elijah's life. And so his parents formed a foundation to try to promote education in daycares around allergic reactions. We already do this in the K-12 space. So this is something we're doing around empowering people at school to give EpiPens and understand how to use EpiPens. What we're trying to do with this bill is extend that down to the pre-K level. I worked on this with the Department of Education and the Department of Health.
There's no cost to this. This is all agreed to language. We started with a little bigger bill, and, of course, as you know, we pared it down so that everyone's comfortable with the amount of training we're asking to provide and how that's going to be rolled out. Elijah's dad could not be here with us today. We're hoping that we can bring him to the Senate because he has a compelling story to tell, and I think for all the work he's done, he ought to get a chance to tell that story. But we wanted to go ahead and get this out of the House today, if we can, and get it over to the Senate so that he could be over there and present. Representative Richardson, you're recognized for a question.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
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29:25
Representative Johnson, I'm loving what you're doing here. My question is, it's going to be federally funded, correct?
Representative Lee Johnson
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29:38
I don't think, so let me, so are you reading something in the bill specifically? Yeah,
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
29:43
I'm starting on page 4, line 30, it says a child care facility may apply for funding through a
Representative Lee Johnson
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29:51
federal child care development block grant. May, yes. It's not requiring anyone to apply for that funding,
and there's no guaranteed funding available that they may apply. So in those low-income areas
Representative R. Scott Richardson
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30:01
where we know they're struggling to keep doors open, they probably won't have the ability to accommodate this is what I hear you saying. I don't believe this is an
Representative Lee Johnson
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30:09
unfunded mandate. I don't believe there's going to be anything in this that they have to do if there's not funding available. Thank you. Any other questions by
the committee? see no questions there's no one signed up to speak for or against is there anyone in
the audience that would like to speak for or against seeing no one representative you're recognized
to close for your bill close for my bill and
make a motion do pass that's proper motion any discussion on the motion
Representative Mary Bentley
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30:38
yes ma'am representative bentley you're recognized i just want to thank i represent johnson for bringing this forth this is a great bill thank you
for what you do we need more education that space so thank you
again for all your hard work on this and i'll definitely be do pass. Thank you,
Representative. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Opposed? Congratulations, sir. You've passed your bill. You prepare to run
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
30:58
House Bill 1840? I am, Mr. Chairman, Representative Lee Johnson, District 47. Members, you know we're trying to
address some things around sedation dentistry and people with disabilities. We passed some good legislation out of Representative Mayberry's earlier this week. This is tied to the people that are on the waiver or on the waiver wait list, so they're assigned to a pass. One of the issues we had is that the passes are specifically excluded from dentistry. We wanted to clarify that that doesn't mean sedation dentistry. So this is the way that we can turn on the codes to allow passes to be billed for sedation dentistry through our different institutions that would supply that.
This is agreed-to language between some of the passes and some of the providers, and I'd be happy to answer any questions on what we're doing here. Any questions by the
committee? Representative Bennett, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
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31:51
more of a comment. I want to thank you for bringing this. My son is on a pass, so this will greatly help him. Thank
Representative Lee Johnson
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31:58
you. You're welcome. And as you know, my daughter also
has special needs and is on a pass, so this is good for everyone in the community.
Yeah, thank you. Any additional questions by the committee? Seeing none, we don't have anyone signed up to speak for or against.
Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak for or against? Seeing no one, Representative, you're recognized to close for your bill. Close for my bill and make a motion to do pass. That's a proper motion. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations, sir. You passed your bill. You
Representative Lee Johnson
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32:29
prepared to run House Bill 1841? I am. You're recognized. Representative Lee Johnson, District 47. Members, House Bill 1841, the first thing I want to say is this has not got any funding attached to it.
So specifically, this would just be a mechanism to distribute money if we ever identify money available for our ambulance services. We've looked at, for two sessions now, trying to find a way to support our EMS services in the counties. As you know, if you live in a county where the population is low, there's a limited number of 911 calls that occur. The only way that these ambulances really derive revenue is from the 911 calls. And so if they don't get enough 911 calls in a year to pay for an ALS and or a BLS truck, it's hard to make those ends meet.
And our counties at times have had to subsidize these ambulances. Right now, you know, we're continuing to struggle in some of our least populated counties for this reason. The way we designed this mechanism was to recognize that the lower population of counties have a higher need for funding. And so we divided this in a percentile basis, dividing up the biggest percentile for the least populated counties, and we divided these counties into tiers. We broke the tiers off by looking at volumes of 911 calls for each county.
So we sat down with the Ambulance Association of Association Counties and looked at where are the natural breaks here as far as number of 911 calls and where does it make sense to create these tiers so that we can fairly distribute the money if we ever get money available. This reflects a little bit like what we do in fire. So there's an act called Act 833 that has a mechanism for distributing fire funds. It gives funds to each county sort of in an upside-down order from what we're trying to do here
in that the most populated counties who have the most potential for fire structure, fire support, get the most money, and then the least get the least. we're trying to flip that upside down to say that if we ever decide to fund EMS through this mechanism, that we would have it be the least populated counties getting the most money. We have this set up so that if we ever got money, the money would be administered through grants. Each county would have its own account. The account would be named for the county so that
you understand and not given to the quorum courts. So the money would set in an account named for each 75 counties and then this new committee that hopefully we're going to be able to form with this other bill would then have some opportunities to receive grant applications and then distribute those grants. There's also some language in here about qualifying services and also some grant stipulations. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions
on this bill. Any questions by the committee? Representative Bentley, you're recognized for a question. Representative
Representative Mary Bentley
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35:27
Johnson, my county would be tier 5, but we right now take some of our sales tax and our sales tax dollars go to fund EMS and for our county it's working great. We have the best EMS we've ever had. I've been there for 40 years. I can attest it's the best EMS service we've ever had. I guess I'm just concerned because according to this graph we're only going to get 20% while counties with more population are going to get 60%. um of the funding so and we're taking some of our sales tax to go towards that so i guess i've just
got a little concerns on that now you're saying the least popular to get the
most money but not according to this you're giving 60 percent to tier four and tier five which is at least popular just gets 20
Representative Lee Johnson
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36:08
percent um anyway so and i want to speak to that because there's a fewer number of counties in tier five so even if you get 20 of the money to the to the counties it gets divided up so the 60 percent is getting divided up by a lot more counties and so ultimately your county would get more money than a county in tier four even though the percentile is more does that
make sense it does yeah thank you for the next question any additional questions by the committee seeing none we don't have anyone signed up
to speak for or against the bill is there anyone in the audience that would
like to speak for or against the bill seeing no one you're recognized to close for your bill i'm closing my bill make a motion do pass that's a proper motion any Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed? Congratulations, sir. You passed your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee. Members,
we're going to move back up to the top of our regular agenda.
Representative Aker, are you present and prepared to present House Bill 1530? Yes, Mr. Chair. You're recognized to go to the end
Ben Washington
Unverified
37:11
of the table. If you will, identify yourself for
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
37:17
the record, and you're recognized to present. Representative Acre, District 71. Thank you,
Chairman and Committee. I'd like to call Brian Fowler, CEO of the Arkansas Surgical Hospital, as well as Elizabeth Pittman, from DHS to the table, please.
Speaker 9
37:40
If you will, identify yourself for the record. Brian Fowler, CEO of Arkansas Surgical Hospital.
Chair
Unverified
37:48
Good morning, Elizabeth Pittman. I can't say my name today. Director for Division of Medical Services. Representative, you're
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
37:56
recognized to present your bill. Thank you, committee. I know that we were here earlier this week. I'm
going to ask Brian Fowler here to give another quick synopsis as to hit some of the high notes. I believe we've reached out and gotten some more confirmation on some of the education that was needed to prove that the program remains tenable and successful with this exit strategy. And with that,
I'm going to turn it over to
Speaker 9
38:18
Brian Fowler to give a brief recap. So, honor, to
Speaker 124
38:23
speak to you all again and some for the first time, House Bill 1530 amends the definition of a specialty hospital within the hospital provider tax program. This would grant an exemption to Arkansas Surgical Hospital from the program and would put us alongside Children's and Heart Hospital within the definition. This exemption was actually offered to our hospital at the inception of the program.
We were a newly formed hospital with a new program. And alongside that and within the program itself, having a 1% cap on the tax rate, as well as language that allowed hospitals to move in and out of the program, we declined at that time. But again, we were offered that as we were identified not to be a fit because of how highly specialized we are in orthopedic and spine surgery. Over the last 16 years, this program has changed. The tax cap has increased, and the calculation methods have even changed as well.
And so this program today is not what it was 16 years ago. This supplemental payment program is very important to the state and to all the hospitals while we've worked so diligently with DHS. In talking with them, we did receive confirmation that it required no state plan amendments. And also, they had their contractors run the data for us and assured us that the calculation that came out met the statutory criteria for an automatic approval for the CMS waiver.
And we've actually seen that language of automatic approval, that statutory language, within an approved waiver in another state program as recently as December of 2024. And so Arkansas Surgical Hospital sees patients from every single county in the state. We're not a community hospital. We provide expert orthopedic and spine care to this entire state. And so considering that fact and being a for-profit hospital that pays almost $2 million in sales tax, property taxes, and pass-through state income taxes that a lot of the other facilities within this program do not pay,
we just can't continue to pay into a supplemental payment program that we don't clearly fit. we don't obtain value from. Thank you. I would just like
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
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40:39
to echo that. I think it is admirable that for 15 years
they've continued to participate in this program under the guise that there was no exit. They didn't sue the state. They didn't make any sort of, I guess, problematic issues. They see value in the program and have for 15 years continued to take their licks and participate in
it. Now that this program has changed and now that they have gotten assurances that there is a safe exit strategy, they're here today to request that exit strategy that was offered to them originally. So I think it speaks volumes of the authors of the program offered them the exemption on the front end because they knew that they were not a tenable fit for this. Again, to have, I guess, participated in this in good faith I think speaks to the values of their organization. And we wouldn't be here today without the assurances from DHS that
this safe exit does exist. And I think that that speaks to the fact that for the last 15 years, they haven't been at this table. With that, we
welcome questions. Any questions about the committee? Representative Bentley, you're recognized for a question. Thank you,
Representative Mary Bentley
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41:46
Chairman. And thank you all for being here today. I was not here when this bill was first presented, so I might have a couple more questions. And I appreciate
your indulgence. So I would like to hear from Elizabeth Pittman. You know, we all care. I've got small rural hospitals in my state,
in my district. I'm just going to make sure that, again, it's not going to negatively impact them. And if you could
Speaker 132
42:05
go over the numbers for me, I would appreciate it. Yes, ma'am. So there is a language in the regulation that they refer
Speaker 134
42:13
to. What we have to submit to CMS is called a P1, P2 waiver. I don't know why they have to give everything a weird name, but they do. And basically, if we are at one or under, then we are considered automatically exempt. We ran the numbers again to make sure we at that ratio without Arkansas Specialty Hospital in to be able to apply for that automatic exemption. It does meet that requirement.
I have never done an automatic exemption with CMS, but that is our intention is to submit it as an automatic exemption to that P1, P2 waiver request. You're recognized. I
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
42:47
need a little more specifics for the state. When you apply for this waiver, we're going to have, in the form that is not going to negatively impact our smaller hospitals that are paying into the system now? Is it going to change the number that they're going to receive? And I know I should have more
knowledge of all this, but if you can just get a little more into the weeds for me, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 132
43:07
I will try as best I can. I am not a finance expert by any means. I'm a lawyer, and they usually
Speaker 134
43:13
don't let us touch numbers. So my understanding is that is correct. Because of the way that it's done, we look to make sure that if we pull one hospital out, We're not going to make the model break. That's what that waiver is for. And then that's why we have to pass it, because the rule is that it applies to all hospitals equally. So there's a requirement that there's a waiver. The state doesn't match those dollars with SGR.
They're matched by that tax, and then we use that to pull down the federal dollars. So all we're pulling out is what Arkansas Specialty Hospital would have put in. Everyone else's will remain there and then be
distributed accordingly. You're welcome. Members, we have several in the queue. Representative Perry, you're
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
44:05
recognized for a question. Thank you. There
we go. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I'm looking at this, and as far as CMS, on the automatic approval,
will that waive the public comment period? for? For the state?
Speaker 134
44:26
No, sir. We would still, if we have to do a rule, which we don't believe this is a state plan change, so that would not necessarily have to be promulgated, but that CMS approval does not waive our state requirement to put anything through public comment if required. Okay. Would this
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
44:41
also, there's another specialty hospital in northwest Arkansas. Would this open up and allow them to be exempt as well? No, sir. Because we have to do this P1, P2 waiver,
Speaker 134
44:52
using the specific hospitals that we're exempting, that's what CMS would be approving. And that's why we can't just automatically include Arkansas Specialty Hospital without resubmitting those numbers today. Okay. I have
Chair
Unverified
45:04
more questions. I'll come back. Representative Ferguson,
you're recognized for a question. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
45:14
something that Representative Bentley was saying about the CMS waiver. So DHS is going to ask for a waiver. Yes, sir.
Speaker 152
45:23
What happens if we don't get the waiver? Nothing changes.
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
45:29
It stays like it is today. So it stays like this today in the
Speaker 132
45:33
bill. How does it affect this bill? Well, I
Speaker 134
45:35
believe the bill asks for us to submit a waiver. Is that correct? So it doesn't change the bill. I mean, the bill would still stand that, and we would have met the obligations by submitting that waiver. But if CMS doesn't approve it, it doesn't change the status quo. A specialty hospital
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
45:49
would still be in that model. Okay, it'd still be in the model. Yes, sir. The other question, something else that represented it mentally, was talking about rural hospitals.
Of course, my hospital, it serviced a lot of rural areas in Jefferson County, JRMC. How is this going to affect them? Well, based on the numbers we've run, it should not have
Speaker 134
46:08
an impact on them, a significant impact at all, because we're still passing that P1, P2 waiver that we have to pass in order to even attempt to
Speaker 164
46:16
exclude a hospital from the tax. Follow up, Mr. Chair?
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
46:20
You're recognized. So it shouldn't affect them? Yes, sir. So if you don't get the waiver, then it still won't affect them.
Is that what you're saying? Yes, sir. So
Speaker 152
46:32
the numbers remain the same? I would want to double-check that, but yes, that's my
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
46:36
understanding. Scott? I would echo that the numbers are based on the number of Medicaid patients they see. So, again, it's not a guaranteed flat amount of money, but it is based on the volume of Medicaid patients. So your hospital, you know, if there's not a dramatic dip in their Medicaid, patient population, then their numbers will stay the same or grow if they were to see more Medicaid patients.
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
47:00
Okay. Representative Ladyman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, the discussion's been about rural hospitals.
I have two of the largest hospitals in the state in my district, so it would be the same for them. so they would not see an impact here. It would be automatic by CMS, is that correct?
Speaker 127
47:24
It would be an automatic approval of that
Speaker 134
47:26
waiver if, as far as, I don't know what an automatic approval process with CMS looks like,
but yes, that is what that regulation says, is that it's an automatic approval process. That still has to be
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
47:38
submitted and reviewed. For large hospitals as well as rural,
Speaker 134
47:41
right? Yes, it's for every hospital in the model. It would stay the same except Arkansas Specialty Hospital would not be included. All right,
Chair
Unverified
47:49
thank you. Representative Richardson you're recognized for a question thank you Mr. Chair can is DHS
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
47:55
here she's at the table I'm sorry I am so sorry I'm so sorry sometimes I forget too I'm used to seeing the other young lady that we
always have man now Pickington just threw me off what I was about to ask you so so I guess maybe I'm maybe I'm getting some some different information because it's my understanding that if this does go into effect, that there is risk of dollars not hitting our hospitals as they once did. Are you telling me there is no risk in that?
Speaker 134
48:30
I mean, there's always risk with this model.
By CMS definition, the model itself cannot hold a hospital harmless. So there's always some risk associated with the model itself. Based on the number of Medicaid clients you see, as they said, What we're saying is there's a test that CMS makes us meet to get a waiver anyway. And if there's a certain ratio in that waiver, that's what the ratio is, is if we take that hospital out, what does that look like for everybody else? And we meet that automatic, we don't think you need to get the full waiver approval process numbers
by taking Arkansas Specialty Hospital out, which we think means there's minimal risk by moving
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
49:12
forward. Representative Richardson, I'll chime in a little bit. Their participation, or not participation, doesn't change the top-line amount of money that
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
49:25
each hospital receives. Okay. Okay, thank you. Representative Perry, you're recognized for a follow-up question. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. So I'm reading this, specialty hospital defines orthopedic hospital.
So, Ms. Pittman, you can guarantee us that the physician specialty, which is an orthopedic hospital, would not be included in this bill? Because I figure once that happens, they'll come back and ask for a waiver as well. Well, if they're not defined as a specialty hospital in the
Speaker 134
49:53
bill, then we would have to come back to you guys to get them included in the bill before we even applied for a waiver. But, I mean, the more hospitals you added to the exemption, the worse that P1, P2 gets for us to be able to move.
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
50:10
And then the calculations would be all skewed. Yes. Okay. How many Medicaid patients
does the specialty hospital see? I don't know the answer to that
Speaker 182
50:25
one. That's okay. Could you repeat the
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
50:27
question? I'm sorry. That's all right. What percent of Medicaid
Speaker 124
50:33
patients do you all see? I don't have that exact number. I mean, we're about 60% Medicare-Medicaid, more heavily Medicare, obviously,
just because of the specialties that we do. I mean, being orthopedic in spine, it's not as simple as finding more Medicaid patients that need a shoulder replacement. And being an independent, you know, small hospital, We just don't have the reach and the stretch that the other hospitals do to even catch all those
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
51:06
patients. The other two hospitals you mentioned, their ER is open 24-7.
Speaker 124
51:15
open your ER 24-7? Our ER has been open 24-7 since 2005. Great. Okay. All right. Thank you,
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
51:24
Mr. Chair. Representative Rose, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Acre, anybody
else at the table, including DHS, just briefly, are there any other states that have created similar off-ramps? Yes, I
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
51:38
believe Brian alluded to there was a similar off-ramp that was created in California in December of 2024
that I believe was actually significantly more complicated than what we're trying to do here, and they were automatically
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
51:53
approved by CMS. Have there been funding model collapses in the wake of doing these things in any other states? No, Representative. Okay. All right.
Thank you. Representative Baker, I did have one question, maybe better for DHS, but I understand the exemption process 15 years ago, and this was offered to you,
and you and the body at that time chose not to take advantage of that. Are there any other hospitals in the state that we
think may fit a criteria that if this is approved, they will then come and ask for application through
Speaker 134
52:29
the same means? I am not aware of any, and again, even if they did, we would then have to resubmit that test to CMS, and we may not meet that definition of automatic approval
Ben Washington
Unverified
52:40
as written in that regulation. Okay. I'm going to ask that one other way. Are there any other
hospitals that are out there in the state that you think would similarly align
with this hospital in terms of their ability to apply? To be honest, Representative, I
Speaker 127
52:55
don't know that we've looked at that specifically, so I would have to take that
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
53:00
question back. I would defer maybe to Brian here to identify why the orthopedic and spine designation of the bill limits this to just them. Okay. I'd
Speaker 124
53:10
love to hear that. We're not aware of any other hospitals today that meet that definition. In the past, I believe that there were, but going through the list,
as we have today. I do not identify any on that list today, according to my knowledge. Okay. Any additional questions by the committee?
Seeing none, we don't have anyone that signed up
to speak for or against the bill. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak for or against the bill? If you will, come to the end of the table and recognize yourself for the record. Are you speaking for or against? Yes.
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
53:46
Okay. Hi, I'm Jody Entritt. I'm the Executive Vice President of the Arkansas Hospital Association.
I do want to say very affirmatively, I sincerely believe Brian Fowler and Representative Aker when they say they do not want to hurt the program. The questions for us remain. So in the CFR that everyone is addressing, saying that there is an automatic approval, it also says, and I'll read directly from it, If the state demonstrates to the secretary's satisfaction, that means the secretary of DHHS, that the value of P1, P2 is at least one, CMS will automatically approve the waiver
request. Because this does take a secretary action, it does put the program at risk for review. That doesn't mean that I know 100% it won't be reviewed. It doesn't mean that they know 100% it will be reviewed. The risk versus reward is what I ask you to weigh. I know I've sent some of you how much the program means to your district and your program. Representative Ladyman, I know you've heard from your district or at least one hospital in your district about how much it means to that program. The question is, is the risk worth the reward?
The other thing I would contend to offer is physician specialty in northwest Arkansas likely does fit the definition of House Bill 1530 as far as an exemption goes. If the P1, P2 test was not done in that specific way, then probably they need to redo that. They may automatically also fit, and I do defer to DHS on that. I recognize fully the California information, let me tell you. I found that also last night. California, the exemption that they requested was granted, but in a subsequent letter, right
behind the letter where the waiver was requested, CMS also said, you know what? this while we grant your waiver because the dollars and the p1 p2 test and frankly they also had a b1 b2 test with slopes and stuff i hadn't done since differential equations at hendrix but that that piece of it also was in there and it said we're also concerned cms is also concerned that while you meet the letter of the law and we do give this an approval we also have concerns that the old formulas we created in 1992 and 1993 that are looking at these tests now no longer
fit the methods and the reasons why we created those particular tests. So we, CMS, are going to look at other guidelines, regulations, and other things that we may pass to make sure that the hospitals that are bearing the Medicaid load are not the only hospitals paying a tax to offset the expenses on the hospitals that are carrying the Medicaid load and seeing the majority of Medicaid patients. I applaud them. I believe they're correct. This is not a, I think they're telling
you something that's not true at all. I believe earnestly that they are sincere. I believe earnestly they believe this program will not be impacted. My concern is I also believe earnestly that it could be. And as tenuous as our hospitals are right now, I would beg you to vote no on this and let us continue to work, especially with the new federal administration, on what might happen between now and then to make sure our hospitals in Arkansas are sustainable, all of them. Are you able to take questions?
Are you willing to take questions? Yes, sir. Representative Perry, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Tritt, so you're talking about all the other hospitals, especially the rural hospitals. If this impacted some of the rural hospitals that are, we're talking, you know, week to week, hanging on, how would that impact
those? So the way the P1, P2 test, if he's exempt, he pays a little over a million dollars a year. Is that correct in the tax? So that million dollars actually would have to be absorbed by all the other hospitals that are still within the program.
It's a million dollars. I'm not trying to say that's a huge amount that every other hospital in the program would have to absorb. But the truth is they would. So if you're paying $200,000 in a tax now, you might pay $205,000 next year. What does that mean? What does that $5,000 mean? It's different for every hospital. But some hospitals that are struggling to make payroll, $5,000 is a lot of money. Representative
Chair
Unverified
58:06
Ferguson, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
58:11
You're at my question about what happens if we don't get approved for the waiver. I represent all the city of Dumas in my district. There's a little small hospital there, and they kind of just text me. But they're already struggling. Yes, sir. So, but any, well, I can, well, I won't go ahead. But anyway, how does this affect them or
JREMC if the waiver is not approved?
We think it will be, so therefore, they'll be
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
58:50
okay. So I take Elizabeth Pittman at her word that if the waiver is not approved, that things stay as they are. The issue is at the federal level right now, especially with the California situation where they said we're going to look at these things because the old 1992 and 1993 calculations may no longer impact or line up with the intent of our program, which is to make sure those Medicaid hospitals or the hospitals that see a majority of Medicaid patients
are rewarded for doing so. I will remind you for every Medicaid patient that we see, hospitals lose money even with the supplemental payment program. That's why these programs were created at the federal level is to help us offset those expenses for seeing Medicaid patients. So to answer your question directly, if the program is jeopardized and the Department of Human Services has to redo or recreate our supplemental payment program, it puts the thing in jeopardy to where one, we may lose a couple of years in timing if they don't allow us to continue the existing program
while we're moving along. Or two, they could decide that the assessment program that we have right now doesn't fit their programmatic definitions and goals. And if so, then we lose the ability to give ourselves a supplemental payment, an enhanced payment that we pay for, so that state general revenue does not have to. And that is the risk we're concerned about. Thank you. Any additional questions
by the committee? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony.
There is no one else signed up to speak for or against the bill. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak for or against
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
1:00:33
the bill? Seeing none, Representative, you're recognized to close for your bill. Thank you. Committee, what we've heard is we have evidence of statutory approval for the program. We have evidence that if the waiver is not approved, that it would continue as is.
What we don't have is any evidence to support all of the concerns that were just listed.
The authors of the program offered the exemption because they saw that this hospital did not fit. And for 15 years, this hospital has been paying in at a charitable rate for all other 79 hospitals that have been participating in that. And they have done so year after year without raising a fuss, without jeopardizing the program, because they believe that there was no safe exit. If CMS was going to remove this program, what we do here today is irrelevant. They can go after the program with or without our attention.
And if as early as December of 2024 they looked at the program and approved it, we're working off precedent here. We have statutory approval, we have precedent, and we have DHS's assurance. They had 15 years of belief in the program. And if Medicaid reimbursements are so untenable that we have to create a back-end workaround where there are some massive winners and some massive losers, Medicaid reimbursement should be looked at separately.
We shouldn't hold a private hospital hostage for a million-dollar loss for another 15 years. while we ignore the real issue, which is Medicaid's underlying reimbursement. And with that, I am closed for my bill, and I appreciate a motion and a good vote. What's the will of the committee? If a motion do pass.
Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. The ayes have it. We've got one hand.
Speaker 207
1:02:30
We've got two hands. Call the roll. Representative of Hanley? Yes. Representative of Hanley? Yes. Representative of Barnes? No. Representative of Barnes? No. Representative of Gramlich? Yes. Representative of Gramlich? Yes. Representative of Ruggins? Yes.
Rose? Yes. Representative Rose? Yes. Representative Moore? Yes. Representative Moore? Yes. Representative Representative Schultz. Representative Long. Representative Representative Enid, no. Representative Richardson, no. Representative Richardson, no. Representative
Representative Cooper? Yes. Representative Cooper? Yes. Representative Johnson? Representative Johnson? Representative Perry? No. Representative Perry? No. Representative Pilkington? Yes. Representative Pilkington, yes. Representative Allen? No. Representative Allen, no.
Representative Ferguson? Representative Ferguson? Representative Bentley? Yes. Representative Bentley, yes. Representative Vladyman. Yes. Representative Vladyman. Yes. Representative Mugee. No. Representative Mugee. No.
bill has failed. All right members we're going to move down the agenda House Bill 1543. Representative Bunderwood, are you prepared to run your bill? we're
going to start back at the top of the agenda representative brown are you prepared
to run house bill 1142 i apologize i couldn't see you behind the column that's okay
Speaker 215
1:05:40
thank you mr chair representative alissa brown district 41 we have a fiscal impact members
and an amendment i believe for this uh bill we're going to pass these out fiscal impact and a handout we're going to hand these out if you will identify yourself for the record and once the fiscal impact has made its way around you're recognized to present your bill okay
representative you're recognized to identify yourself with the record and you can start to explain house bill
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:07:35
1142 perfect thank you mr chair thank you members representative alissa brown district 41 and i'm honored to present to y'all today hb 1142 which is the restore act i want to start off by reading from page two of the bill women are worthy of the highest standard of medical care, including the opportunity to assess, understand, and improve their reproductive
health. Reproductive health conditions are the leading causes of infertility, which affects 15 to 16 percent of couples in the United States. Furthermore, many women that have untreated reproductive health conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, ovulation dysfunctions, etc., suffer from a wide variety of issues such as hormonal imbalances, painful menstruation, and other symptoms that clearly they just make life difficult and more challenging. So how does this bill, the RESTORE Act, help these women?
That's by requiring restorative reproductive medicine coverage. I understand most of us have probably not heard of that. So I want to read that definition straight from the bill. And that's on page four. Restorative reproductive medicine is defined as a scientific approach to reproductive medicine that seeks to cooperate with or restore the normal physiology and anatomy of the human reproductive system without the use of methods that are inherently suppressive, circumventive, or destructive to natural human functions. So simply put, restorative medicine focuses on
holistically treating the underlying health conditions that may be causing infertility. This prioritizes women's health over the profits of Big Pharma and Big Fertility. After all the definitions in the bill, because I know it's 10 pages now, I did take it down a lot. I filed this, members, I filed this bill on the third day of session. So I've heard a lot of feedback on it and made some good changes. But after all the definitions in the bill, you will see the language requiring Title X funded facilities
to incorporate fertility awareness-based methods in their service. This was originally also restorative reproductive medicine. That was my first goal. But after speaking with the ADH and due to federal grant guidelines, we just now list fertility awareness-based methods because that is in the federal grant standard of care. So that's covered. All those questions are answered. I took out restorative there. I also removed all the original reporting requirements out of this bill.
And then on page 7 of the bill, we get to the main intent. And this is to add with existing codes that health insurance companies doing business in this state that are already required to cover in vitro fertilization, that was in 1991 up to $15,000, they're already required to cover that, that now they have to add in restorative reproductive medicine. I want to note that reproductive medicine is also much less inexpensive than IVF, much
less expensive, let me reword that, than IVF, and the average cost of IVF can be up to $70,000. It's also less abrasive on the body and has higher success rates, but I do want to be clear, this doesn't limit anyone's ability to access IVF, and actually there's a lot of studies show that paired with restorative reproductive medicine, the chances of conceiving through IVF are much higher and much more successful. At the end of the bill, we also list
the Institute of Restorative Reproductive Medicine, which is an organization that medical professionals use to provide the evidence-based education on restorative health. So to close, And before anyone has any questions, hopefully I answered some of those. Women should not spend years in pain struggling with unexplained infertility when restorative treatments that could alleviate their pain and remove barriers to successfully conceiving and curing children exist.
Arkansas women deserve better than this. They deserve a standard of care that addresses those underlying health conditions. and today we can take one step forward with this bill. So with that, I'll try to answer any questions. Representative Bennett, you're recognized for
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:12:07
a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Brown, I have a question. Did you mention in your testimony that you took out the data, I mean the reporting piece of it?
Chair
Unverified
1:12:21
In the original bill that I filed on the third day of session,
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:12:26
there was a large reporting requirement section just to keep up with success rates of data of those who use restorative reproductive medicine because it is evolving. We did strike most of those sections. I'm
Chair
Unverified
1:12:38
assuming you're asking because you see a part in the bill where there's
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:12:43
reporting. Well, can I ask my question and maybe you didn't? Okay. How can the proposed bill which mandates the tracking of reproductive health conditions
be safeguarded against potential misuse that could lead to the surveillance of tracking women's personal health data? And what measures will be implemented to protect individuals' privacy and prevent discrimination? That's a
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:13:08
great question. There are no reporting requirements in this bill right now. Even if there were, what is already required is always non-identifiable information, and that the intent, if it was there, it's not. The intent would always be
to figure out how to update these services to better serve women who want to conceive and want to know about advancing technologies and advancing medicine for this. So hopefully that answered your question. Any additional questions by the committee? Representative Bentley,
you're recognized. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Representative Brown, for
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:13:47
being in this bill. As someone that has actually been through in vitro, I was a surrogate for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law.
It's just a horrible process. That's all I'm going to say. It was very harmful to my body. It was very uncomfortable, the whole thing. I did it
because I loved my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. I would never do it for anything but for love. But anyway, I'm thankful for this bill. So tell me, I know this is always involved, but there's always new things that are going forward. So do we have any success rates from some of the processes here? But, yeah, can you tell us how successful it's been some of that data? It would be great.
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:14:25
Yeah, I don't have it completely in front of me,
but over 40% of couples that
first start with restorative reproductive medicine are able to conceive naturally. And then also with this ongoing research and tracking and other areas, we see that they do not face some of the other health conditions later on down the line that are getting restored because it's about restoring the health of women and taking a holistic approach there and so great question Representative Bentley and you know we do see something filed
on a federal level that's similar to this but Arkansas can take a step forward in having this standard
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:15:09
of care for women. You recognize Representative Bennett. Thank you Mr. Chair. I have one more question. How will Title 10 funds which are intended to support a wide range of reproductive health services be affected by the bill's mandate to prioritize restorative reproductive medicine? Great
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:15:27
question. At the beginning when I was presenting I did mention
the big amendment I made that was engrossed and we took out the restorative reproductive medicine in part, for Title X funding. Now, it only says fertility awareness-based methods because that's already in the Title X funded grant. I heard that feedback from others, so we've covered that. Representative Henley, you're recognized for a question. Thank you,
Representative Dolly Henley
Unverified
1:15:53
Mr. Chair. Representative Brown, will we hear from the medical society or any of the professionals in this field today? I have
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:16:02
not heard of any opposition to the bill,
Chair
Unverified
1:16:05
And so I have not heard of any of that they would
be here or anything like that. Representative, I do have a question for you, too. And then I think there may be a couple others that are in the queue. Does this apply to all health insurance providers? So private insurance along
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:16:28
with like our home, the expanded population or Medicaid population? It's a good
question. So the language in the bill, we are adding on to an existing area of code. So on page nine, it says an accident health insurance company doing business in the state shall include as a covered expense in vitro fertilization and restorative reproductive medicine.
So those that cover in vitro fertilizations that's already mandated, now they just also have to cover restorative
reproductive medicine. So it's those companies that this already previously applied to. Okay, so I'm
going to follow up to my own question. are these already covered under Medicaid and our home or the expanded population, or are you aware whether they're covered? IVF,
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:17:14
That may be a question for somebody else,
Chair
Unverified
1:17:19
but all the research I have done is that they are not covering this
currently. We're going to go back to questions. I'd
like to hear from someone from Medicaid at some point to know if those services are covered. Representative Allen, do you have a
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
1:17:36
question? That was my question also, that we get Medicaid, somebody from DHS, to come to the table and answer the question.
We'll honor your request. Someone from Medicaid here?
Speaker 136
1:17:56
Hello again. Elizabeth Pittman, Division of Medical Services. You recognize the answer to the question. So my understanding is that Medicaid itself, traditional fee-for-service Medicaid, does not cover and is not required to cover under this bill. Let me start with that. The qualified health plans, the expansion population is subject to this
Speaker 152
1:18:12
bill. They do currently cover some fertility treatment. I can get you exactly how they responded to me on that. So this would apply to those plans. Are
Speaker 132
1:18:19
you willing to take additional questions? I will try.
Representative Allen, did you have a follow-up? Not at this time. Representative Johnson.
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
1:18:32
Yes, Mr. Chairman. So if I understand the program correctly, that wouldn't add any cost to the state, right? The fact
that the QHPs cover this plan, that's part of their, that would just be part of their insurance that we pay the premiums for. Is that correct? We would defer to the QHPs on
Speaker 152
1:18:48
whether that would raise any premium costs. We would not have to directly pay for this. There wouldn't be direct state funding that
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
1:18:57
would incur because of the coverage for the
Speaker 152
1:18:59
QHPs? That's correct. It would all be indirect
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:19:07
through premium increases. Representative Rose, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. Ms. Pittman, thanks for your testimony today and for taking our questions. Are you familiar with restorative productive medicine? Not very much, sir. No. Okay. Representative Brown, as you understand it and the composition of this bill, the costs of the restorative reproductive medicine is less than the alternatives that are currently covered.
Is that correct? Yes, substantially lower. Did you say earlier that somewhere around 40% of couples that go with the restorative reproductive medicine conceive
Speaker 215
1:19:49
naturally? If I remember correctly, that's
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:19:51
some of the data that we have. Just making sure I understand. So hypothetically, should this pass, families who opt to use these treatment forms, 40% on average
are conceiving at a lesser cost than alternative methods.
So in turn, that would be
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:20:11
saving money? Right, absolutely. And even, you know, to add on to that, like I said, pairing with IVF to a lot of couples that go through in vitro fertilization, then those women still need this restorative reproductive medicine because they never got their underlining health conditions addressed. So this is more cost-effective in the long run and
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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1:20:35
at the beginning. Follow-up, Mr. Chair. You're recognized. Thank you.
Is there anything in this bill that forces somebody
to choose these kind of treatments over another kind? No, it just gives them the option. Okay, so this expands options for folks trying to conceive a child. Yes,
Chair
Unverified
1:20:53
and it empowers and educates women. Okay, thank you. Thank
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:21:01
you, Mr. Chair. Representative Richardson, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. So Representative Brown, I'm going to ask you some questions just because I don't know definitions of some of this. So when we talk about restorative reproductive medicine and what it includes, It seems like some of these things are included with most things regarding a pregnancy,
ultrasound, blood tests, all this. But what caught my eye was exploratory surgeries. So help me understand that, what that
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:21:27
would entail. Yeah. So I just thank you for the question. You mentioned with pregnancy. Well, addressing reproductive health isn't always just to conceive. I mentioned in the early beginning stages of my testimony that these are just underlying health conditions, like your reproductive organs want to be, they need to be healthy. So that surgery was addressing endometriosis surgery, but there's other surgeries that may entail for women in order to get that reproductive health.
I'm not a doctor. I'm not an expert on this. I did work with some leading experts on this. And then I will say in the financial impact statement, you can see that surgery that they listed, which is surgical procedures, which included endometriosis surgery and other things. So you can see that cost there too. The highest cost for that could be up to $10,000. But that's going to be the few.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:22:28
And DHS, is that something that's currently covered? Exploratory surgery? So by
Speaker 136
1:22:34
traditional Medicaid, we don't cover fertility treatment. We cover medically necessary services. So if a woman has a condition that requires a surgery, we would cover it for a Medicaid-eligible client, but not for fertility or reproductive treatment. We do indirectly pay for these services through QHPs, but to get you exactly what they cover, I would have to pull their coverage policies, which they have sent me on this, and I can give that to you.
Okay. Okay, thank you. Any additional questions by the committee, Representative Johnson? Yeah, Representative, I
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
1:23:10
think if I'm reading this correctly, so you're defining restorative reproductive medicine, correct? And so that, by definition, would limit what the list under B could apply to, correct? It would only apply for, so a laparoscopic exploratory surgery would only apply to a situation where you're seeking to restore reproductive anatomy or physiology.
So there would be a limitation
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
1:23:41
to that, correct? My understanding, yes. Representative Moore, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Brown, are there other states
Representative Nicole Clowney
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1:23:49
that have this reproductive empowerment law in place? Thank you. Great question. Not this exact type of legislation, but there are states who have already mandated certain coverage that's in restorative reproductive medicine,
but not to this extent. We've seen the federal legislation that's been filed. And, I mean, I will mention certain insurance providers already cover some of these restorative
Chair
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1:24:12
reproductive procedures, but not all of them. And we just also want to codify that standard of
Speaker 256
1:24:21
care. You're recognized. Thank you. And I guess
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
1:24:25
my other question would be, are we under the assumption that OBGYNs or fertility clinics
doctors are not helping women through a similar process to this point? Is that what the bill is trying to address? I don't
Chair
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1:24:43
know if I would come into agreement with that statement. I would say
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:24:49
this bill wants to again empower women and give them the education that is evolving with restorative reproductive health. There's new research all the time. As we're seeing evolving technologies with IVF, we want to see this with restorative reproductive medicine. And it also
helps, you know, we've got some information here like through the Institute of Restorative Reproductive Medicine for those providers to better serve these women.
Chair
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1:25:15
Representative, We'll continue to recognize for
Representative Kendon Underwood
Unverified
1:25:20
a question. Thank you. You talked about the Federal Restore Act
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:25:25
that's going through. That's a bipartisan piece of legislation of the federal, right?
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:25:29
That is a great mention. Yes, as bipartisan support, hopefully we'll see it pass
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:25:35
there too. Okay, and then my other question is, would restorative health be helpful for couples like myself,
who's a Catholic and because of my religious beliefs cannot use IVF, But there are other methods that are sanctioned by my religion to use. And so for those women who may have those concerns, this would
Chair
Unverified
1:25:55
be helpful to them. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's little to no ethical and moral concerns with restorative reproductive medicine. Representative Richardson, you're
recognized for a question. Thank you. Thank
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:26:06
you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Representative Pilkington, for identifying that bipartisan piece of legislation.
as you were working on this, what was the, I'm assuming you met with OBGYNs and that group, what was their feedback on this piece of legislation? It
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:26:25
was many months ago, but it was through the Institute of Restorative Reproductive Medicine, which was designed by OBGYNs, doctors, all of those who have worked in this field, and they're the ones who have come up with this type of legislation and wanting to fight for this type of coverage because they've seen it work, and they've seen the success rates. So
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:26:45
beyond that group, did you talk to any other
OBGYNs that weren't associated with this particular group? I have
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:26:52
not in the state. I haven't heard any negative feedback. Again, I filed
Chair
Unverified
1:26:55
this the third day of session. It sat there for eight weeks. Some of my other bills, I did hear
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:27:02
from OBGYNs that were opposed to them that I'm not running. So I think if they were opposed to this, they definitely
would have reached out. Thank you. Representative Rose, you're
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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1:27:13
recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to follow up on Representative Moore's line of questioning,
or at the least it triggered some thoughts that I had. Individuals who have OBGYNs, physicians, clinics that they're working with, who may already provide some of these services, but their insurance coverage is not there for that. So individuals could receive maybe all or at least some of these products, but they have to pay for them out of pocket. Is that correct? Right, you're correct. So what this would do would allow folks to have insurance coverage
for already established forms of treatment, therapy, procedures, surgeries, etc., that
OBGYNs and clinics are providing. Right, you're absolutely correct. And that's why many doctors
Chair
Unverified
1:28:02
are the ones leading the cause of fighting for this because they want to see this coverage for their patients. And so I'll end with this, is
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:28:11
that what this is doing is removing cost as a barrier. So it's not just available for people who can afford it, but available for people who may want to conceive children and can't afford it.
And this makes this an option for them. Exactly right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any additional
questions by the committee? Seeing none, we do have someone signed to speak for the bill. Ms. Cherise Camp, I believe. Did I get that correct?
Ben Washington
Unverified
1:28:57
Yes, you did. Thank you. If you will, identify yourself
Speaker 265
1:29:02
for the record, and you're recognized for your testimony. Yes, I'm Sri Steen with Family Council. Thank you, Chair and community members. I'm going to be very brief, just offer our support of this legislation. We think it's very good legislation that is family-friendly. As all of the points that have been brought out today, I think we believe it empowers women to be managers of their own health and is family-friendly in the fact that families that are trying to either begin their families
or expand their families have this method that is not as cost-prohibitive as IVF treatment. So we just wanted to offer our support, and we think this is a good bill. We hope that you give it a good vote. Thank you. Any questions from the committee? Seeing none, we don't have anyone else signed up to speak for or against. Is
there anyone in the audience that would like to speak for or against?
Seeing no one, you're recognized to close for
Representative Nicole Clowney
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1:30:06
your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, committee. Thank you all for the questions. I've been very passionate about this legislation since the beginning of filing it because, again, women deserve the highest standard of care, and Arkansas has a moment here to kind of lead this conversation with restorative reproductive medicine as an option. And so with that, I would appreciate a good vote. Representative Pilkington, you're recognized for a motion. Motion do pass. We have
a motion do pass on the table.
Representative Aaron Pilkington
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1:30:34
Any discussion on the motion? You're recognized for discussion. Thank you. Well, I just want to say thank you for bringing this bill today. It's actually pretty interesting. My sister-in-law is actually going into a procedure today, a restorative health procedure today. So it seems kismet that we'd be voting on a bill like this. And I'm excited for the women. It's going to help. And I just think this is a good bill and appreciate a good vote from the committee. So thank you. Any further
discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. I'm going to call
it for the ayes. Got two hands, call the roll.
Speaker 207
1:31:17
Representative Henley, no. Representative Barnes, no. Representative Barnes, no. Representative Representative Grimlich? Yes. Representative Grimlich? Yes. Representative Rose? Yes. Representative Rose? Yes. Representative Moore? No. Representative Moore? No. Representative Schultz? Representative
Schultz? Representative Long? Representative Long? Representative Ennit? No. Representative in it? No. Representative Richardson? No. Representative Richardson? No. Representative Cooper? Yes. Representative Cooper? Yes. Representative Johnson? Yes. Representative Johnson? Yes. Representative Perry? No. Representative Perry? No. Representative
Pilkington. Yes. Representative Pilkington, yes. Representative Allen. No. Representative Allen, no. Representative Ferguson. Representative Ferguson. Representative Bentley. Yes. Representative Ladyman? Yes. Representative Ladyman? Yes. Representative McGee? No. Representative McGee? No.
Sorry your bills failed. Representative Underwood are you in the room? You prepared
Representative Kendon Underwood
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1:33:20
to run House Bill 1543. Yes, Mr. Chair. While we're getting ready for that, may I have a guest
join me at the table? Yes, sir. Ask them to identify themselves for the record. Thank you.
Ben Washington
Unverified
1:33:35
Thank you. Nick Staley, FGA Action. If you will identify
Representative Aaron Pilkington
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1:33:41
yourself for the record and you're recognized to present. Representative Underwood, State Representative, District 16. Thank you, committee and thank you for your time today. I know you've had a long committee meeting so I'll try to be as brief as I can be. This bill strives to give people more opportunities and pathways to meet the work requirement for SNAP benefits. I want to be clear though this bill does not add any new requirements to obtain SNAP benefits. Able-bodied individuals are already required to meet a work requirement and this bill does not change that. This bill gives individuals the
opportunity to volunteer which would help them meet the work requirement. So it just gives them the ability to have more options. For context, Arkansas already passed a law for a mandatory employment and training or an ENT program in its food stamp program in 2019. As part of that implementation, Arkansas should require state agencies that receive state funding to accept volunteers who request an opportunity to comply with that ENT requirement. Now, this is completely permissive, and I think that this is important to note, that the bill gives wide latitude for these
government entities on accepting these volunteers. So the bill allows volunteers to observe government entity operations to the extent the observation does not interfere with essential functions or the health and safety of employees or the public, and the government entity may also prohibit a volunteer from engaging in activities on the premises of the government entity, and they're prohibited from accepting and accommodating a volunteer who negatively interferes with essential operations and I'll turn over to Nick if he has any additional comments. Yeah sure just at a high level
Speaker 274
1:35:18
I think that the that the key thing to to mention here is that what we're doing is just providing another pathway for people to meet that work requirement. Folks are already if you're subject to the ENT work requirement, you're already required to work, train, or volunteer. This is just simply providing another pathway for that. And I'm open to questions if the committee has any. Any
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:35:41
questions by the committee? Representative Richardson. Thank you. Who
Speaker 278
1:35:51
are you with again? I'm with FGA Action. What is that, if
Speaker 275
1:35:55
you don't mind me asking? Yeah, sure. So most folks here would probably know me more through the C3 side, through FGA. The
Speaker 274
1:36:01
foundation for government accountability. We're a think tank that works on things that get people out of dependency and back to work. Thank you. Any additional questions by the committee? Yeah, I got a couple. Representative Richardson, you're recognized for a question.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:36:26
Do you think, Representative Underwood, this could negatively impact some of the individuals, like adding some additional burden to these people? What we see in some of my communities are those individuals who are really suffering to make ends meet, and they have two kids or whatever, now they're going
to have to go and do volunteer work. No, I thank you for the question, because I think
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:36:52
you raise a point that I want to make sure I'm clarifying.
we're not changing the work requirement at all so the work requirements already in place and part of that is a volunteer requirement that's already in place this doesn't change any of that in addition but part of that work requirement is you don't you have to be an able-bodied individual this is kind of unrelated to what my bill does but you have to be an able-bodied individual so if you have dependents you actually don't have a work requirement my bill just gives people the opportunity to meet that work requirement by having a pathway to to volunteer, but they don't have to do it. It's completely permissive. So if they have to meet a
work requirement, they can do it other ways. They don't have to follow this. It just gives an opportunity to meet that work requirement by having a volunteer opportunity through state agencies. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Any additional questions by
the committee? Representative Innick, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:37:44
How does DHS as bill about this. Yeah, thank you for that question. I did speak
Representative Kendon Underwood
Unverified
1:37:49
with them before I ran the bill, and they informed me that they were fine with this bill. Any additional questions by
the committee? Seeing none, we don't have anyone signed up to speak for or against the bill. Is
there anyone in the audience who would like to speak for or against the bill?
Representative Kendon Underwood
Unverified
1:38:07
Seeing none, representative, you're recognized to close for your bill. Thank you, committee. Thank you for the questions, and I'll
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:38:13
just, you've heard my presentation. I'll just say I think this gives It's an individual's an opportunity to meet that requirement
if they have one, and I'm close for my bill. What's the will of the committee? Have a
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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1:38:25
motion due passed. Representative Rose, any discussion on the motion? You're recognized. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. After reading
through this, listening to the testimony, one of the reasons I'm supporting this is that it literally adds no requirements to folks.
It actually opens up additional ways for them to fulfill the volunteer requirement that's already an established law. So it feels like it's giving people
easier pathways to fulfill these requirements, and so I'm supporting it for that reason. Any additional discussion on the motion? Representative Ladyman. Yeah, I think
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:38:57
your bill is a good bill because people are already going to have the requirement. It gives them another option. But the other side of this that you may not have thought of
is these organizations that need volunteers, it can fill that need and meet that obligation. So it's a win-win in that situation. So I think it's a good bill, and I'll vote for it. Any additional discussion on the
motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations, you passed your bill. Representative, are you prepared to run 1751? Yes, Chair. Thank you, Committee, on
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:39:34
the last bill. Yes, I'm prepared, and I have an amendment for that bill.
Okay, we're going to pass out that amendment, then you'll be asked to identify yourself for
the record if you will identify yourself for the record you'll be recognized to present your amendment it just adds a senate
Representative Aaron Pilkington
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1:40:01
sponsor correct yes that's correct so kenden underwood state representative district 16 and yes my amendment it just adds Senator Bryant as my Senate sponsor to the bill.
Any discussion on the amendment? We have a motion to adopt the amendment. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor say
aye. Opposed? Your amendment's been adopted. You are now recognized to present House Bill 1751 as amended.
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:40:28
Thank you, committee. This bill is a simple bill. It requires that job-ready applicants for the cash welfare program in Arkansas, also known as TANF search for a job while their application is being processed. So I want to be
clear there's already a work requirement for this. This is just moving it up in the process to where they're searching for the job while their application is being in process. A dozen states already do this including our neighboring states Mississippi and Missouri. So it's it's being implemented other places and I think it's a great thing to do just so that way people are constantly staying in the workforce and being desirable in the workforce because they're consistently looking for a job and I also think this is a benefit to taxpayers as well.
I'm open to questions. Any questions by the committee? Seeing none.
We don't have anyone signed up to speak for or against the bill. Anyone in the audience who would like to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, you're recognized
Representative Aaron Pilkington
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1:41:30
to close for your bill as amended. I'm closed and I
appreciate a good vote. Thank you, committee. What's the will of the committee having a motion? Do pass as amended. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?
No. The ayes have it. Congratulations. You passed your bill. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, committee. All right, committee, we're going to continue to work down the list. Representative Gramlich. I'm trying to
get to you. You're recognized to go to the end of the table and present Senate Bill 367. There's an amendment with this bill. Committee, we're going to pass this amendment out, give you a chance to review it,
and then we'll recognize you to present the amendment.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:42:21
Just to be clear, the amendment just adds me as the
sponsor. I think we can handle that without reading
it. We'll go ahead and pass that out in case the committee has any questions. You're recognized to present your amendment to Senate Bill 367. The amendment recognizes
Speaker 293
1:42:36
me as a sponsor. You have a motion, sir? I have a motion to pass on the
amendment. Motion to adopt the amendment. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Aye. Opposed? No. Oof. I'm going to call it for the ayes, but I think it's close. You're recognized to present Senate Bill
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:42:56
367 as amended. Well, I'm glad that hearing aid bill is going to come through here in a few months. We'll get that figured out. But thank you, Chair. Thank you, Committee, for being here today. Senate Bill 367 is an easy bill. It's a small business revolving loan fund discontinuation. This is an Energy and Environment Department bill. What it does is the bill discontinues the small business revolving loan fund for pollution control and prevention technologies.
Representative Zack Gramlich
Unverified
1:43:21
The program was not successful, and it is no longer used or beneficial for E&E. This funding required E&E to act as a lender and enforce collections when not paid. What will happen is this fund balance, which is approximately $1.78 million, will turn it into a series of grants to award to Arkansas entities that may include school laboratory cleanups, waste tire abandonment, and assistance to small businesses with environmental remediation. Any modification in fund use will require further approval by the legislature.
And with that, I'll answer any questions. Any questions by the committee? Representative Richardson, you're
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:43:57
recognized for a question. So you said that those are going to be grants, that those are some of the
things that you could possibly go to. Yeah, no longer a loan. It's just going to be grants. And then the department doesn't have to act like a loan company and go and take
Representative Zack Gramlich
Unverified
1:44:11
collections and get their money back. Okay. And you said how much is in it? $1,780,000. Any additional questions by the committee?
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:44:22
Representative Bennett, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. What department does this go through
Representative R. Scott Richardson
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1:44:29
again? I missed that. It's under Energy and Environment, and they're here if you'd like to speak with them. I'm
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:44:37
good. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Ladyman, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Energy may have to come up and answer this question for somebody here. They
brought their A-team today. If you will, identify yourself for the record, and you'll be recognized to answer the question.
Speaker 297
1:44:55
Lauren Ballard, Chief of Staff, Energy and Environment. Bailey Taylor,
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:45:02
DEQ Director and Chief Administrator of Environment. Yeah, I think it's an easy question to answer, but I'm just curious. The program that would replace the grant program that you talked about, does that require legislation or can it be done with rules? I think whatever
Speaker 300
1:45:19
we end up doing, I think we can run through legislative council as far as just redirecting that appropriation.
Representative Jack Ladyman
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1:45:25
So as you develop it,
we can do it in the interim? I believe so, yes,
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:45:37
sir. Okay, thank you. Any additional questions by the committee? Representative Bennett, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The purpose for these funds was for economic development, encouraging investments in environmentally friendly options to small businesses, and paying
a front for project costs, has this failed its mission?
Speaker 300
1:45:58
Is this why you're repealing this? That's correct. The original enabling legislation, it only allowed for, I think, pretty small loans on the front end, and I don't think we've given a loan
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:46:11
out under this provision in over 10 years. Follow up. Is it because people
Chair
Unverified
1:46:16
didn't know about it? It served its purpose, and so there was some new regulations that required gas stations to meet those requirements, and so these loans were created in order to allow those smaller gas
stations to put that infrastructure on, and so those that took advantage of it have already either returned their loan or maybe didn't return their loan, and so that was, like she said, over a decade ago, and so it has served that purpose, and there's no other, you know, opportunities for the amount that we're able to give where they can retrofit for environmental purposes, any facility. It's such a small amount. Representative Richardson, you're recognized for a question.
So this was just created for convenience stores or gas stations?
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:47:04
Yes, sir. Okay. Others can apply, but that was the intent at that time because of the new requirements, regulatory requirements
that had come out. So do you envision moving forward, and Representative Gramlich and
I have some issue in our area where we've had some, I'll say some pollution in terms of smell that's coming in. Would states, would cities or other organizations, and maybe it's just too early to figure this out, I'm just curious.
Would this be part of the grant they could go after since it's dealing with pollution, quote unquote, in your mindset as it moves? We haven't determined what
Chair
Unverified
1:47:36
grants would be available, but that would be through the... And I know it's just premature, so I apologize, but thank
Speaker 294
1:47:44
you. We can certainly talk about that. Okay, thank you. When your tail starts wagging, when you hear something nice, I agree. Any additional
questions by the committee? Seeing none, we don't have anyone signed up to speak for or against the bill.
Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak for or against the bill?
Seeing none, you're recognized to close for
Representative Zack Gramlich
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1:48:02
your bill. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your time, and with that, I would motion to pass on you. As amended? Of
course. That's a proper motion. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed? Congratulations, sir. You passed your bill as amended. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Committee. Members, we're
going to run back up to the top of our list. Representative Bentley, House Bill 1677 has been re-referred to committee. You're recognized to go to the end of the table.
We have an amendment we're going to pass out. We'll give you guys a chance to review that, and then we'll recognize you to introduce yourself for the
record and present your amendment. I do want to make a quick announcement also to those who are guests in the
room. We have folks who are signed up to speak on Senate Bill 100 and House Bill 1795. Those bills will not be heard today, so I don't want you to have to sit through this to the end of the committee.
I wanted to make sure that you were aware that those bills will not be heard today. Thank you.
All right, committee, you've received the amendment. Representative Bentley, if you will, recognize
yourself for the record, and you are prepared to present the amendment to House Bill 1677. Thank
Representative Mary Bentley
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1:50:05
you, Chairman. State Representative Mary Bentley, District 54. Colleagues, you were very gracious and passed this bill out last time.
I went and had a conference call with the Pharmacy Association, and we went through the bill. I was going to do this on the Senate, but I thought this might be easier to do it here before we passed it down there. So we went line by line, and we just added a couple things to tighten this bill up to make sure that it does exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that these pharmacists that are going to be pretty much running this are licensed here in the state of Arkansas. We did not have that in the original bill. Put a couple of safety things in there in the amendment to make sure that the medication box will be behind a locked door. There's just two double lock things we added in there.
And, again, made sure there was not any Schedule 2s in the box. Those are a couple of things they wanted us to add to the bill. That's pretty much it. Just made it a little bit safer bill. Tightened it up just a bit. And those are, again, recommendations from the Pharmacy Association. And I'll take any questions on the amendment if anybody has any. Any questions on the amendment? Seeing none, do you
have a motion, Representative? I make a motion to do pass on the amendment. We have a
motion to adopt the amendment. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Opposed?
Congratulations, you've adopted your amendment. You're now recognized to present House Bill 1677 as amended. Thank you, Chairman. Again, Committee, this
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:51:19
is a bill to allow for an emergency medication box and a medical detox unit in our state working with rehabs. Very limited number of these, but wanted to make sure if they happen to be in a rural area, which one is going in my district in a rural area, that they have this emergency medication box in case somebody has a seizure or cardiac arrest that they can take care of those patients safely. Again, it's run by a licensed pharmacist in the state of Arkansas. They will come and replace the medications as needed. We'd use this
in nursing homes that are in rural areas as well, and so pretty much mimics exactly what they're doing in those places. So I'll be happy to take any questions if anybody has on this bill. Any questions by the committee?
Seeing none, we don't have anyone signed up to speak for or against. Is there anyone in the audience
who would like to speak for or against? Seeing none, you're recognized to close on your bill as amended. I'm closing. Thank you guys again for
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:52:06
letting me bring it back to committee and make the necessary changes here on our end. With that, I make a motion to do pass. As amended. As
amended. That's a proper motion. Any discussion on the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations, you passed your bill as amended. Representative Moore, are you prepared to run House Bill 1801? You're recognized to go to the end of the table. You will identify yourself for
Ben Washington
Unverified
1:52:43
the record, and you're recognized to present. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
1:52:47
Kendra Moore, District 23. House Bill 1801 was created through an idea brought to me by my APRN. What I really enjoy about this committee, and I'm going to be very positive after a long session that we've had in here today, is relationships with these health care professionals that we daily interact, or they daily interact with patients, assessing their situations, and can give us feedback as to what they see as concepts that can really help patients. And this is one of those situations, my APRN had begun trying to help patients with more affordable solutions for semaglutides, I think we're all familiar with that medication is, but through this compounded version, and so specialized compounding pharmacies that are called outsourcing facilities or these 503B compounders are a special class of compounding pharmacies that are licensed and regulated by the FDA and must be good manufacturing practitioners.
standards. They want to make sure that this does not impact EBD or any payers. It simply adopts this FDA guidance on who a 503B outsourcer can sell to. These specialty compounders create medications that are no longer produced or are expecting shortages. These are sterile injectable medications. Historically, these facilities were not allowed to sell retail to retail pharmacies
for them to be able to dispense these medications to patients. However, the FDA has just changed its position on that last year, and they now allow these specialty compounders to sell to pharmacies to dispense to patients with a valid prescription. This bill will bring Arkansas in line with these FDA guidelines and allows our constituents to be able to take advantage of these compounded medications when the FDA allows them to be compounded, saving our constituents' money.
It's worth noting that many med spas and other groups have been buying and administrating these already. This just clears up that patients can get them from their local pharmacies too. I'd also like to state that the Pharmacy Association is in support of this bill. And a few minutes ago, I just received an email endorsement from the National Community Pharmacists Association with this. We've also spoken to the board pharmacy, and they gave us input on this bill that we incorporated in
Speaker 256
1:55:20
this bill as well. So with that, I will try to answer any questions.
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:55:26
Representative Ladyman, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just so I understand, so when you talk about specialty compounders, I mean, can those be the local pharmacies that do compounding? Is that what we're talking
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
1:55:41
about? So, with your permission, Chair, I'm going to ask Scott Pace to come join me at the table. I think the answer to that is that there are three official compounders in the state of Arkansas, but I will let Mr. Pace expand on that.
Mr. Pace, if you will, identify yourself for the record and you're recognized to answer the question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Scott Pace, and I'm
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:56:08
just speaking as an individual pharmacy owner here today. Representative Leiterman, could you repeat your question for me? Well, so I have a pharmacy in my
Chair
Unverified
1:56:16
district that does compounding. I mean, would that be a special compounding? Is that what we're talking about? It's a good question. The particular type of compounding that Representative Moore is talking about is not patient-specific compounding. It is more akin to manufacturing, and there are only 87 facilities in the country that the FDA has authorized to be these kind of bulk compounders, so to speak.
They do those sterile products that she mentioned. There are only three in the state, one in Fayetteville, one in Conway, and one in Little Rock. The ones that are in your district that do compounding, they do what's called patient-specific compounding, and that's where you would go into the pharmacy with a prescription for you for a specific drug that they would make for you. These particular ones are ones that, for example, make epidurals for hospitals that are unable to get epidurals, and they make them in giant bulk so that they can
sell them to the hospital for the hospital to then use on a specific patient, but they don't know who the patient is at that time. So it's a really niche, it's a niche thing that doesn't impact those local folks making it. Thank
you. Representative, you're recognized for a question. Thank
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:57:22
you, Mr. Chair. Scott Pace, how are you doing? I'm well, Representative. Thank you. I have a question. I don't know if this is totally related to this bill, but Representative Moore, you did mention med spas.
How are they able to dispense these type of drugs? How do they get around
that? I guess this question is for you, Mr. Pace. Okay, thank
Chair
Unverified
1:57:48
you, Representative, and it's a great question. That's what this is all about from a guidance perspective. So I'll give you just a little bit of history. In 2013, Congress passed the law that created these two different categories of compounders, these individual compounders in the local community that do the patient-specific and the bulk compounders.
So the bulk compounders, when they were first created by Congress, were told they could only sell their products to hospitals and to clinics for administration. The FDA has just recently clarified and said that they can now sell their products to retail pharmacies for dispensing to patients. So the med spas, for example, have been buying those appropriately under the FDA for administration, which is different than for dispensing.
And so Representative Moore's bill just clarifies that with the FDA's new guidance. Any additional questions
by the committee? Seeing none, thank you for being here. Thank you for your testimony. We don't have anyone signed up to speak for or against the bill.
Anyone in the audience wish to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none. Representative, you're recognized to close for your bill.
Speaker 256
1:59:04
I'm closed for my bill and make a motion do
pass. That's a proper motion. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Congratulations. You've passed your bill.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Committee. Committee members, we have one more bill we're going to
take up today, Senate Bill 278, Representative Perry. If you will, sir, identify yourself
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
1:59:38
for the record, and you are recognized to present Senate Bill 278. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mark Perry, District 66, Senator English, and
Representative Meeks, our sponsor in this bill.
This comes from the ALC Licensing Review Subcommittee. It is a repeal of no longer needed license, so it does away with it. Any questions by the committee? Seeing none, we don't have anyone signed up to speak
for or against the bill. Anyone in the audience
wish to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, you're recognized and closed for your bill. I'm closed and make a motion to pass. That's a proper motion. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.
Opposed? Congratulations, sir. You passed your bill. Committee, thank you for your good work today. We don't have any further business on the agenda. We stand adjourned. Thank you.
Agenda
CONCUR IN SENATE AMENDMENT
HB1245 Clowney TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS BEHAVIOR ANALYST REGISTRATION ACT.
HB1257 L. Johnson TO REMOVE THE LIMITATION OF THE PRACTICE OF NEUROPSYCHOLOGY FROM TECHNICIANS EMPLOYED BY PSYCHOLOGISTS; AND TO ALLOW PSYCHOLOGY TECHNICIANS TO BE EMPLOYED BY PSYCHOLOGISTS.
RE-REFERRED TO COMMITTEE
HB1677 Bentley TO AUTHORIZE ALCOHOL AND DRUG ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAMS TO MAINTAIN EMERGENCY MEDICATION KITS.
REGULAR AGENDA
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1142 A. Brown TO CREATE THE REPRODUCTIVE EMPOWERMENT AND SUPPORT THROUGH OPTIMAL RESTORATION (RESTORE) ACT.
HB1530 Achor TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "SPECIALTY HOSPITAL" RELATING TO THE ASSESSMENT FEE ON HOSPITALS UNDER THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM.
HB1543 Underwood TO ESTABLISH THE WORKFORCE EXPERIENCE OPPORTUNITIES ACT OF 2025.
HB1592 J. Mayberry TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS ALZHEIMER'S AND DEMENTIA PUBLIC HEALTH ACT.
SB257 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE MEDICAID FAIRNESS ACT; TO EXTEND THE APPEAL PERIOD FOR PROVIDERS IN THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM; AND TO REQUIRE COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION IN NOTICES OF ADVERSE DECISIONS.
HB1653 Cavenaugh TO SET STANDARDS FOR THE LICENSING AND REGULATION OF PSYCHIATRIC RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT FACILITIES.
HB1164 J. Mayberry TO ALLOW A PHYSICIAN OR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER TO OFFER COGNITIVE ASSESSMENTS FOR CERTAIN PATIENTS; AND TO MANDATE THAT INSURANCE POLICIES COVER ASSESSMENTS FOR COGNITIVE FUNCTION FOR CERTAIN PATIENTS.
HB1004 Pilkington TO REQUIRE MEDICAID COVERAGE FOR POSTPARTUM MOTHERS FOR ONE YEAR AFTER GIVING BIRTH.
HB1723 Pilkington TO AMEND INITIATED ACT 1 OF 2000, ALSO KNOWN AS THE TOBACCO SETTLEMENT PROCEEDS ACT; AND TO DIRECT THE ARKANSAS MINORITY HEALTH COMMISSION TO ESTABLISH AND ADMINISTER A GRANT PROGRAM FOR SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CENTERS.
HB1332 Pilkington TO REQUIRE THE ARKANSAS MEDICAID PROGRAM TO COVER GLUCAGON- LIKE PEPTIDE-1 RECEPTOR AGONISTS, ALSO KNOWN AS GLP-1 AGONISTS, WHEN PRESCRIBED FOR WEIGHT LOSS.
HB1751 Underwood TO REQUIRE AN APPLICANT FOR TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES PROGRAM BENEFITS TO ENGAGE IN JOB SEARCH ACTIVITIES WHILE THE APPLICATION IS BEING PROCESSED.]'
HB1767 L. Johnson TO ABOLISH THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES ADVISORY COUNCIL; AND TO CREATE THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
HB1791 C. Cooper TO CLARIFY THAT THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AND THE UNITED NATIONS DO NOT HAVE JURISDICTION OR POWER IN THIS STATE AND DO NOT HAVE AUTHORITY TO ENFORCE OR IMPLEMENT ACTIONS IN THIS STATE.
SB278 J. English TO REPEAL THE STATUTES CONCERNING THE OCCUPATIONAL AUTHORIZATION AND LICENSURE OF CERTAIN EMPLOYMENT OFFICES AND AGENCIES; AND TO REPEAL THE ARKANSAS PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCY ACT OF 1975.
HB1795 A. Brown TO CREATE THE FERTILITY CLINIC LICENSURE ACT.
HB1801 K. Moore TO AUTHORIZE AN OUTSOURCING FACILITY OF LEGEND DRUGS AND CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES THAT COMPOUNDS A PRODUCT TO SELL THE COMPOUNDED PRODUCT TO CERTAIN ENTITIES.
HB1816 L. Johnson TO PROHIBIT HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND HEALTHCARE INSURERS FROM USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE DELIVERY OF HEALTHCARE SERVICES OR THE GENERATION OF MEDICAL RECORDS UNLESS CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS ARE MET.
HB1817 L. Johnson TO ESTABLISH ELIJAH'S LAW IN ARKANSAS; AND TO REQUIRE THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO ESTABLISH A STATEWIDE ANAPHYLAXIS POLICY FOR CHILDCARE FACILITIES.
HB1818 L. Johnson TO CREATE THE MEDICAID PROVIDER-LED CARE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT.
HB1819 L. Johnson TO REQUIRE THE STATE REGISTRAR OF VITAL RECORDS TO COORDINATE WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS FOR MEDICAL SCIENCES TO CONTACT MOTHERS FOR SUPPORT AND ASSISTANCE DURING THE POSTPARTUM PERIOD.
HB1840 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE MEDICAID PROVIDER-LED ORGANIZED CARE ACT TO ENSURE THAT SEDATION DENTISTRY IS COVERED BY RISK-BASED PROVIDER ORGANIZATIONS.
HB1841 L. Johnson TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS REVENUE INVESTMENT IN VITAL EMS SYSTEMS (ARRIVES) ACT; AND TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS REVENUE INVESTMENT IN VITAL EMS SYSTEMS (ARRIVES) FUND FOR EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES AGENCIES.
SB367 Irvin TO REPEAL THE SMALL BUSINESS REVOLVING LOAN FUND FOR POLLUTION CONTROL AND PREVENTION TECHNOLOGIES ACT; AND TO REPEAL THE SMALL BUSINESS REVOLVING LOAN FUND.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — PUBLIC HEALTH, WELFARE AND LABOR COMMITTEE- HOUSE, Mar 20, 2025 | Agenda | 4 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Jeremy Wooldridge Chair
Unverified
Speaker 7
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
Ben Washington
Unverified
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Speaker 19
Speaker 27
Speaker 36
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Latoya Morgan
Unverified
Speaker 48
Speaker 49
Speaker 61
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 87
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Speaker 85
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Representative Sonia Eubanks Barker
Unverified
Speaker 9
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 124
Speaker 132
Speaker 134
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
Speaker 152
Speaker 164
Speaker 127
Speaker 182
Speaker 186
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
Speaker 207
Speaker 215
Representative Dolly Henley
Unverified
Speaker 235
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
Speaker 136
Representative Kendra Moore
Unverified
Speaker 256
Representative Kendon Underwood
Unverified
Speaker 265
Speaker 274
Speaker 278
Speaker 275
Speaker 293
Representative Zack Gramlich
Unverified
Speaker 297
Speaker 300
Speaker 294