2005 Testimony

Testimony Before The Senate Human Services Committee

Judy Lee, Chairman

HB 1204 - North Dakota Health Care Trust Fund and the nursing facility funding pool

February 15, 2005

Chairman Lee, members of the committee, I am David Zentner, Director of Medical Services for the Department of Human Services. I appear before you to provide information regarding this bill.

The Department submitted a similar bill, SB 2139, that had a hearing on January 5, 2005 in front of this Committee.

During committee discussion it was noted that HB 1204 dealt with the same issue. The bill we are discussing today includes language in Section 1, paragraph 2, lines 1 through 3 on page two, that was not contained in our bill. The Senate Human Services Committee amended our bill to include that language in the Senate bill. The Department had no objection to the amendment.

The two bills are not exactly the same at this time. Senate Bill 2139 also eliminated language in Section 1, page 1, lines 12 and 13 beginning with “and” ending with “facilities”. The Department suggested eliminating this language in this bill since the changes in federal regulations no longer permit us to use this mechanism to generate funds in the future. We ask that you consider amending this bill to eliminate that language.

The Department has no preference as to which bill becomes law since both accomplish the intended purpose of eliminating language that is no longer necessary since we are no longer able to use the intergovernmental transfer process to transfer funds generated through the use of the upper payment limit from public owned nursing facilities to the North Dakota Health Care Trust Fund.

I would be happy to respond to any questions you may have.

 

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