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Committee advances three health-related bills to Senate floor: HB 91, HB 110, HB 198
Summary
The committee voted to advance three House bills: HB 91 (statutory clean-up removing obsolete code sections), HB 110 (limits Medicaid’s ability to veto scope-of-practice decisions), and HB 198 (moves lab rules into statute and allows market-rate lab fees). All three received due-pass recommendations and will proceed to the Senate floor.
A Senate committee on Oct. 24 sent three House bills to the Senate floor with due-pass recommendations: House Bill 91, House Bill 110 and House Bill 198.
House Bill 91: The Department of Health and Welfare presented HB 91 as a statutory clean-up bill that would repeal roughly 150 obsolete sections of code that the department identified as dead or redundant. Alex Adams, director of the Department of Health and Welfare, said the sections included dormant committees and long-unused grant-authority language and that the department found no fiscal impact from the removals. "We found 150 sections that we identified as obsolete," Adams told the committee, and said the deletions carry a $0 fiscal impact because the provisions are no longer operative.
Senators discussed whether removing obsolete code could inadvertently eliminate provisions later relied upon by pending bills. Adams said the department worked with stakeholders and the House sponsor to “zipper” related legislation so that active updates (for example, residential assisted living licensing changes) were not removed accidentally. A motion to send HB 91 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation carried by voice vote.
House Bill 110: Sponsored by Sen. Seiderfeld, HB 110 would clarify that the legislature and licensing boards — not Medicaid administrative policy — set scope of practice for licensed professions. Seiderfeld said the bill does not compel Medicaid to cover new services but prevents Medicaid from effectively vetoing legislative scope-of-practice changes through inaction. "This does not mean Medicaid has to cover new services, just that Medicaid is no longer in the position of vetoing legislative decisions through inaction," he told the committee. The Department of Health and Welfare indicated no objection to the bill. The committee voted to advance HB 110 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation by voice vote.
House Bill 198: Senator Carl Bjerke presented HB 198, which moves several laboratory-related administrative rules into statute, including quality assurance for clinical laboratories, the state drinking water laboratory certification program, clandestine drug lab cleanup and state laboratory fees. Bjerke said the bill does not add regulatory burdens but does include a provision allowing the state lab to set market-rate testing fees in order to avoid disadvantaging private providers. "The proposed legislation does not add any regulations or burdens to the state labs above what is already required in code and rule," Bjerke said. The committee approved HB 198 with a due-pass recommendation by voice vote.
All three motions to advance the bills were made and seconded on the record and approved without roll-call tallies recorded in the hearing transcript. Committee members asked clarifying questions on each bill; the sponsors and agency staff said they had coordinated language with affected stakeholders and that the measures are intended to declutter code and align statute with current practice.
The three measures will appear on the Senate floor calendar for further consideration.
