By Smithee                                             H.B. No. 771
       74R3644 MWV-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the exclusion of certain nursing homes from the
    1-3  definition of health care provider for purposes of professional
    1-4  liability insurance coverage.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Section 2(2), Article 5.15-1, Insurance Code, is
    1-7  amended to read as follows:
    1-8              (2)  "Health care provider" means any person,
    1-9  partnership, professional association, corporation, facility, or
   1-10  institution licensed or chartered by the State of Texas to provide
   1-11  health care as a registered nurse, hospital, dentist, podiatrist,
   1-12  chiropractor, optometrist, pharmacist, veterinarian, not-for-profit
   1-13  kidney dialysis center, or blood bank that is a nonprofit
   1-14  corporation chartered to operate a blood bank and which is
   1-15  accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks, <or
   1-16  not-for-profit nursing home,> or an officer, employee, or agent of
   1-17  any of them acting in the course and scope of his employment.
   1-18        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995, and
   1-19  applies only to an insurance policy that is delivered, issued for
   1-20  delivery, or renewed on or after January 1, 1996.  A policy that is
   1-21  delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed before January 1, 1996,
   1-22  is governed by the law as it existed immediately before the
   1-23  effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in effect for
   1-24  that purpose.
    2-1        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-2  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-3  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-4  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-5  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.