Amend CSSB 1188 by adding the following appropriately 
numbered section:    
	Section __.  The speaker and lieutenant governor shall create 
a joint interim committee to study and make recommendations to the 
legislature relating to how Medicaid and other supportive medical 
care services can be more effectively delivered through regional 
planning involving all relevant stakeholders in rural, border, and 
urban counties and the surrounding rural or suburban communities. 
Specifically, the study should: (1)  identify incentives and 
resources necessary to promote personal responsibility and 
accountability, encourage preventive care, and expand use of 
available primary care services; (2) identify cost-effective 
technological innovations to improve health care access and 
coordination, such as telemedicine or automated medical records; 
(3)  improve access and availability to primary care services; (4)  
improve access to secondary and tertiary care in rural communities; 
(5)  identify how health care services can be improved through 
collaboration across funding streams, such as the Children's Health 
Insurance Program, Medicaid, and private insurance; (6)  make 
recommendations to improve the capacity of public health entities 
in Texas to comply with the Centers for Disease Control National 
Public Health Performance Standards; (7)  identify successful 
strategies and recommend incentives to develop multicounty public 
health entities authorized to collaborate to ensure that the 
essential public health services as authorized in Section 121.002, 
Health and Safety Code, are available to all Texans;  (8)  evaluate 
the role of existing regional public health entities and make 
recommendations to optimize their capacity to assume 
responsibility for the foregoing purposes or create additional 
regional entities as needed; and (9)  recommend appropriate funding 
levels needed to implement the committee's recommendations.