1-1     By:  Hilbert (Senate Sponsor - Lindsay)               H.B. No. 2966
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House April 19, 1999;
 1-3     April 20, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on Human
 1-4     Services; May 12, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:
 1-5     Yeas 4, Nays 0; May 12, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the authority of certain hospital authorities to
 1-9     provide facilities and services for the elderly or disabled.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 262.034, Health and Safety Code, is
1-12     amended by amending Subsection (e) and adding Subsection (g) to
1-13     read as follows:
1-14           (e)  This section applies only to an authority that owns or
1-15     operates a hospital licensed under Chapter 241 and that is located
1-16     in:
1-17                 (1)  a county with a population of 35,000 or less;
1-18                 (2)  those portions of extended municipalities that the
1-19     federal census bureau has determined to be rural; [or]
1-20                 (3)  an area that is not delineated as an urbanized
1-21     area by the federal census bureau; or
1-22                 (4)  a municipality with a population of less than
1-23     12,000 and a county with a population of 2.5 million or more at the
1-24     time the authority begins operating a facility or providing a
1-25     service described by Subsection (a).
1-26           (g)  An authority described by Subsection (e)(4) may not own
1-27     or operate more than 50 licensed nursing home beds under this
1-28     section and is not  subject to Subsection (f).
1-29           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-30           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-31     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-32     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-33     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-34     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
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