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Minutes for HB2674 - Committee on Health and Human Services
Short Title
Establishing the Kansas telemedicine act.
Minutes Content for Thu, Feb 15, 2018
Chairperson Hawkins asked Eileen Ma, Assistant Revisor, Office of the Revisor of Statutes, to briefly review and update the committee on HB2674. She said HB2674 establishes the Kansas telemedicine Act which is a duplicate of HB2512 except for three changes.
Chairperson Hawkins asked for action on HB2674.
Representative Concannon moved, Representative Kelly seconded the motion to pass HB2674 out favorably.
Representative Ellis moved to amend HB2496, Representative Blex seconded the motion.
Revisor Eileen Ma explained the amendment to HB2674 which stated nothing in the Kansas Telemedicine Act shall be construed to authorize the delivery of any abortion procedure via telemedicine. The amendment also stated that the provisions of the Kansas telemedicine Act shall not be severable. Therefore, if any provision of the Kansas Telemedicine Act is found to be invalid or unconstitutional by court order, all provisions of the Kansas Telemedicine Act shall be null and void (Attachment 3).
Representative Kelly made a substitute motion to divide the proposed balloon amendment into 2 sections, Subsection (a) and Subsection (b). Attachment Representative Osterman seconded the substitute motion to divide the amendment into two subsections.
Representative Kelly's explanation for making the substitute motion was, if the abortion subsection of the bill proved to be unconstitutional, he did not want to sacrifice the complete bill to failure. Revisor Norm Furse, distributed the 2017 Kansas Statutes 65-4a10 which states, Performance of abortions; only physicians; RU-486 or any drug induced abortion requirements; violations (Attachment 4).
Revisor Eileen Ma said according to the language of this statute, abortions would not be able to be performed legally through telemedicine.
Considerable time was spent on questions, discussion and comments concerning the abortion language, and the non-severability clause of the bill.
Representative Barker asked Chairperson Hawkins to call the substitute motion for dividing the amendment into Subsections (a) and (b). The motion to divide the amendment passed on a voice vote.
The consensus of the Committee was to take action on Section 6(b), the amendment first.
Representative Barker made a motion to adopt the more narrow language and Revisor Ma advised if the narrow language was adopted and the provisions of subsection (a) were found to be invalid or unconstitutional, the entirety of the Kansas Telemedicine Act would be null and void. Representative Barker withdrew his motion.
Representative Concannon moved to strike Subsection (b) of the proposed balloon amendment, and Representative Kelly seconded the motion. Discussion ensued ending with Representative Concannon closing her motion to strike the non-severability clause. The motion appeared to pass on a voice vote of the committee. Representatives Osterman, Blex, Powell, Barker, Dove, Ellis, Bergquist and Rafie requested to have their "No" votes recorded in writing in the minutes of the meeting to insure there was a permanent record of their nay votes. It became evident upon the recording of the "No" votes, that the vote on the motion was tied. The Chairperson voted "No" and the motion failed.
Representative Dove made a motion to table HB2674, Representative Eplee seconded the motion. Since a motion to table is not debatable, the motion carried on a voice up or down vote and HB2674 was tabled until Monday, February 19.
