By:  Haley, Nelson                                     S.B. No. 458
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to health insurance benefits for the treatment of certain
    1-2  bones and joints of the human body.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Article 21.53A, Insurance Code, is amended by
    1-5  adding Subsection (f) to read as follows:
    1-6        (f)  A health insurance policy or employee benefit plan
    1-7  providing benefits for routine dental services that is delivered,
    1-8  issued for delivery, renewed, amended, or otherwise contracted for
    1-9  in this state must offer coverage of nonsurgical treatment of the
   1-10  temporomandibular (jaw or craniomandibular) joints.
   1-11        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993, and
   1-12  applies only to a health insurance policy as defined by
   1-13  Article 21.53A, Insurance Code, as amended by this Act, a health
   1-14  care plan arranged for or provided by a health maintenance
   1-15  organization, or an employee benefit plan delivered, issued for
   1-16  delivery, or renewed in this state on or after January 1, 1994.  A
   1-17  policy or plan delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed before
   1-18  January 1, 1994, is governed by the law as it existed immediately
   1-19  before the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in
   1-20  effect for that purpose.
   1-21        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-22  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-23  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-24  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-1  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.