By Johnson                                            H.B. No. 2712
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the assignment of health care benefits payments.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Section 2 of Article 21.24-1, Texas Insurance
    1-5  Code, is amended to read as follows:
    1-6        Sec. 2.  (a)  This article applies to employee benefit plans
    1-7  to the extent the application of this article to those plans is not
    1-8  preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of
    1-9  1974 (29 U.S.C. Section 1001 et seq.).
   1-10        (b)  This article applies to the Texas Employees Uniform
   1-11  Group Insurance Benefits Act (Article 3.50-2, Vernon's Texas
   1-12  Insurance Code) and the Texas State College and University
   1-13  Employees Uniform Insurance Benefits Act (Article 3.50-3, Vernon's
   1-14  Texas Insurance Code) to the extent that benefit programs under
   1-15  those Acts are self-insured.
   1-16        (c)  This article applies to the Texas Public School Retired
   1-17  Employees Group Insurance Act (Article 3.50-4, Texas Insurance
   1-18  Code).
   1-19        SECTION 2.  This act takes effect September 1, 1993.
   1-20        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-21  crowded condition of the calanders in both houses create an
   1-22  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-23  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-1  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.