Committee gives unanimous recommendation to changes in insurance holding company law, slows HMO exam schedule

The Tax, Business and Transportation Committee gave a unanimous due-pass recommendation to the House Health and Human Services Committee substitute for House Bill 398, which would amend the state's insurance holding company law to allow group capital calculation reports and liquidity stress tests and change the statutory timeline for examinations of health maintenance organizations from every three years to no less frequently than every five years.

Supporters said the bill is necessary to meet an accreditation requirement that must be satisfied by January 2026. "This is the same bill that we the I guess, we should say the majority of the content in the bill is the same as senate bill 277, which passed out of this committee. Unfortunately, it wasn't moving quite quick enough, so we needed to amend it into a house bill. And this is required for us to meet our accreditation standard, and that's required by January 2026. So and it must be done by statute, so we don't have many other options," said Elizabeth Johnson, expert witness.

Committee members reviewed the bill and raised a drafting question about duplicate language. A senator noted that on page 13 subsections b and g are identical; the committee was told that enrolling and engrossing would correct the apparent drafting error rather than amending on the floor. The committee proceeded without further amendment.

A motion for a due-pass recommendation was made and seconded in committee. The clerk recorded all members present in the affirmative; the tally was 10-0.

No public testimony was recorded for the item during the meeting. The committee moved on after the vote.

The bill will proceed according to committee rules to the next stage identified by the sponsors.