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Committee moves insulin cap pilot into PERS; amendment and referral pass unanimously
Summary
The Senate Human Services Committee amended SB 23-70 to place an insulin cost-cap pilot permanently in the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) statute and voted to re-refer the bill; committee members said the change preserves coverage for state employees while avoiding a commercial-market insurance mandate.
The Senate Human Services Committee on Oct. 12 amended a bill addressing insulin cost caps to move the pilot project into the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) statute and then voted to do pass as amended and re‑refer the bill to the next committee.
Senator Rohrs moved the amendment to place the insulin pilot in the PERS code, remove the remainder of the insurance-market language from the Senate draft, and keep PERS coverage for insulin supplies; Senator Hogan seconded. Rebecca Fricke, executive director of PERS, told the committee the fiscal note attached to the bill applies to PERS and estimated the state cost at just under $834,000 and described the employer-share impact as about 12% of premium.
Committee members discussed two parallel vehicles: the Senate draft (referred to in committee as 23-70) and an identical House measure (House Bill 11-14) that had passed its committee. Fricke and other stakeholders said keeping the coverage for PERS members was the committee’s immediate priority. Senator Clemens said she would not support a mandate that applied to the commercial insurance market and supported restricting the change to PERS.
After discussion, the committee voted on the amendment. The roll call recorded the following votes on the amendment: Senator Lee — Aye; Senator Weston — Aye; Senator Rohrs — Aye; Senator Hogan — Aye; Senator Van Osteen — Aye; Senator Clemens — Aye. The amendment passed. The committee then voted to do pass as amended and re‑refer the bill; the roll call on that motion recorded the same Aye votes. Senator Rohrs volunteered to carry the bill.
Committee members and PERS staff discussed options for making the pilot permanent in PERS code rather than leaving it in the insurance-code pilot language. Fricke said the proposal would be similar to prior PERS-specific statutory additions (for example, prosthetic limb coverage enacted previously) and could be accommodated using language from last session’s SB 2140 that placed related coverage under PERS code (54-52.1). The committee asked Legislative Council and PERS staff to prepare the wording of the amendment. Victoria Christian of Legislative Council noted there is no appropriation in the bill itself but the fiscal note will require re-referral to appropriations.
The committee’s action keeps the insulin-cap coverage available to the PERS population while avoiding a broader commercial-market insurance mandate in this Senate vehicle. The committee referred the amended bill to the next committee and recorded the fiscal-note estimate for the state share of roughly $834,000.
