BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 3077 |
By: Zerwas |
Appropriations |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Interested parties observe that air ambulances provide critical lifesaving services without knowing if the patient has any form of medical insurance or ability to pay for the service. The parties have expressed concern that a number of emergency patients transported by air ambulances have no insurance, are ineligible for Medicaid, and have no ability to pay for the service. The parties further note that the Medicaid fee schedule pays air ambulance services far below the cost of providing emergency air transportation and pays nothing if the patient is indigent. Furthermore, it is noted that air ambulances, unlike hospitals and physicians, are not eligible for funding of indigent patients through the trauma fund or the Disproportionate Share Hospital Program. C.S.H.B. 3077 seeks to address this issue to ensure the viability of air ambulance services.
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CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.
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RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 3077 amends the Health and Safety Code to establish the emergency medical air transportation account as a dedicated account in the general revenue fund to be composed of money deposited to the credit of the account from state traffic fines, as provided by the bill, and interest earned on the investment of money in the account and depository interest allocable to the account. The bill authorizes the commissioner of state health services to use the money appropriated from the account to provide funding, in addition to funding available from other sources, for emergency medical air transportation and authorizes the commissioner, after consulting with the executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission, to transfer the money appropriated from the account to the Health and Human Services Commission for the purposes of providing Medicaid reimbursements to providers of emergency medical air transportation services and, to the extent possible, maximizing the receipt of federal Medicaid funds. The bill restricts appropriation of money in the account to the Department of State Health Services for those purposes.
C.S.H.B. 3077 amends the Transportation Code to decrease from 67 percent to 50 percent the percentage of the money received by the comptroller of public accounts from state traffic fines that the comptroller is required to deposit to the credit of the undedicated portion of the general revenue fund and to require the comptroller to deposit 17 percent of the money received by the comptroller from state traffic fines to the credit of the designated emergency medical air transportation account. |
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EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2015.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 3077 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and formatted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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