By:  Shelley                                           S.B. No. 230
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to providing oral health care to nursing home residents.
    1-2        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-3        SECTION 1.  Section 32.024, Human Resources Code, is amended
    1-4  by adding Subsection (t) to read as follows:
    1-5        (t)  The department shall provide basic oral health care for
    1-6  adult nursing home residents to the extent permitted by federal
    1-7  law, including but not limited to a mandatory intraoral examination
    1-8  by a licensed dentist for all new residents on admission to a
    1-9  nursing home and yearly thereafter unless waived by the resident or
   1-10  the resident's authorized agent.
   1-11        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-12  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-13  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-14  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-15  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-16  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-17  passage, and it is so enacted.