Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Procurement Healthcare topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Senate sends procurement-healthcare proposal to rules, seeks study and executive review
Summary
Senate Bill 66 would require businesses bidding for state or local contracts to provide health-care benefits to employees; the Senate returned the bill to Rules and asked that it be placed on an interim study and sent to the governor's health-policy commission for review.
Senate Bill 66, introduced Feb. 25, would add a procurement condition requiring contractors seeking state or local contracts to offer health-care insurance to employees. Sponsor Senator Maine said the measure aims to avoid rewarding bidders who cut employee health benefits to undercut competitors and said several local governments already use similar requirements.
"If we're going to use taxpayer dollars, then maybe the contractor that's the winner of that bid ought to get that bid based upon their knowledge of what they're doing and not how they can cut their employees out of health care coverage," Maine said on the Senate floor.
Senators questioned fiscal impacts and how existing contracts would be treated; the sponsor suggested current contracts would need to be grandfathered until their renewal. In light of the policy and fiscal questions, the Senate voted to return SB66 to the Rules Committee and to request that the issue be placed on the interim study resolution and that the president of the Senate forward a copy to the governor's health-policy commission for review.
Next steps: SB66 will be returned to Rules for additional work and be the subject of interim study and executive-branch review before the Legislature considers further statutory action.
