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Committee action roundup: multiple health and social service bills passed with amendments
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Summary
The Senate committee passed a suite of health, tax and social service measures during its 1:00 p.m. calendar, mostly adopting chair‑recommended amendments, several fiscal notes and a handful of reporting or sunset requirements.
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services took action on a large number of measures during the 1:00 p.m. calendar. Below are outcomes the committee recorded in its hearing and committee report language. Where the transcript recorded committee report notes or fiscal figures, those are included.
Votes at a glance
- HB 139 (insurance): Passed with amendments. Committee accepted the Attorney General’s proposed amendments and the Department of Commerce & Consumer Affairs/Insurance Division comments; committee recorded the chair’s recommendation to pass with amendments.
- HB 1379 (health): Passed with amendments (defective date changed to upon approval). Committee accepted written testimony and moved the bill forward with amendments.
- HB 613 (homeless youth): Passed with amendments; committee inserted governance language from related bill HB1101 and noted a general fund request of $1,691,516 for FY26–27.
- HB 701 (taxation; caregiver credit): Passed with Executive Office on Aging amendments; committee noted a $5,000 nonrefundable credit and recorded a Department of Taxation projection of approximately $397.4 million revenue loss for that credit amount.
- HB 716 (health IT): Passed with amendments; committee noted provider estimates of $20–25 million as a one‑time cost to connect rural providers to interoperable electronic health records.
- HB 799 (health care workforce privileges): Passed with Department of Health amendments and a five‑year sunset from the effective date; committee noted the sunset could be removed following a favorable DOH report.
- HB 1179 / HB 11709 (rural emergency hospitals): Passed with technical amendments; committee included DOH and DHS technical proposals and an amended effective date.
- HB 951 (prescription drugs): Passed with Kaiser’s proposed amendments and an effective date upon approval.
- HB 1120 (nuisances): Passed with amendments; committee accepted amendments proposed by Hawaii Reef & Ocean Coalition and set effective date upon approval.
- HB 952 (Parkinson’s registry): Passed with amendments assigning SHPDA as implementing agency and adding a blank appropriation paragraph for committee insertion; SHPDA may contract for implementation.
- HB 1099 (emergency SNAP appropriation): Passed as‑is; the committee recorded support from benefit and anti‑hunger groups and passed the emergency appropriation measure.
- HB 943 (homelessness triage and treatment): Passed with substantial amendments; committee replaced sections with DOH‑proposed language, inserted a blank appropriation aligned with DOH suggested language, and noted a $5.9 million request in the committee report.
- HB 359 (covered offender registration): Passed with amendment restricting applicability to offenders older than 24 years at the time of the offense; committee noted existing defective/transfer language and sent the item to conference.
For each of these measures the committee recorded motions that persons identified as chair and vice chair voted aye; Senator Hashimoto, Senator Keohokalole and Senator Fevella are recorded as voting aye on the repeated roll calls in the transcript. Some bills were passed with technical, non‑substantive amendments and committee report notes; where the transcript recorded fiscal estimates or requested appropriations, the committee included those numbers in its report language.
What the committee recorded but did not finalize in statute
Several items were passed with blank appropriations or with committee instruction that counties or agencies perform additional mapping or produce reports. In those instances the committee’s action defined policy direction and left appropriation and implementation details to the budget process or to implementing agencies.
Next steps
All passed measures with committee amendments will proceed to the next legislative steps (floor or conference as indicated). Committee report language will include technical amendments, specified effective dates, and the fiscal figures or appropriation language noted above.
