Amend CSSB 1468 by striking all below the enacting clause and substituting the following: SECTION 1. Subchapter E, Chapter 21, Insurance Code, is amended by adding Article 21.52Z to read as follows: Art. 21.52Z. INTERIM STUDY ON PHYSICIAN JOINT NEGOTIATION Sec. 1. INTERIM STUDY. (a) The department shall conduct a study as provided by this article to examine whether physician joint negotiation is needed to improve access to health care in this state. (b) The commissioner shall ensure that the department, in conducting the interim study, provides an opportunity for representatives of the following groups, and the oversight bodies or commissions of those groups, to provide information and advice to the department regarding the issues to be examined: (1) physician organizations; (2) insurers, health maintenance organizations, and other persons who offer health benefit plans; (3) consumer groups; and (4) organizations of business entities. (c) The interim study shall examine: (1) whether there is an undesirable domination of the health care market in this state by health maintenance organizations; (2) whether health maintenance organizations have a deleterious effect on the quality or quantity of the delivery of health care in this state; (3) whether physicians are currently restrained from the ability to freely make professional decisions, in consultation with their affected patients, that are in the best interests of patient care; (4) any other aspect of the issue of physician joint negotiation that the department determines is appropriate for inclusion in the study; and (5) whether determinations made under Subdivisions (1)-(4) of this subsection merit legislative authorization of physician joint negotiations on issues regarding physician fees and other areas of dispute between physicians and persons who offer health benefit plans in this state. Sec. 2. REPORT TO LEGISLATURE. The commissioner shall submit to the 77th Legislature a written report regarding the findings of the interim study, accompanied by any proposals for recommended legislation. The commissioner shall submit the report not later than February 1, 2001. Sec. 3. EXPIRATION. This article expires March 1, 2001. SECTION 2. The importance of this legislation and the crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended, and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.