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Minutes for HB2674 - Committee on Health and Human Services
Short Title
Establishing the Kansas telemedicine act.
Minutes Content for Mon, Feb 19, 2018
Chairperson Hawkins told the committee the next bill on the list for final action was HB2674 which was tabled until today, January 19, 2018.
Eileen Ma, Assistant Revisor, office of Revisor of Statutes, gave a followup to the line of questioning that occurred on Thursday of last week concerning KSA 55-40-10 which is the statute that regulates Ru-486. Several committee members asked if the case was under injunction and still pending in district court. A new statute replaced the KSA 55-40-10; therefore, when a statute is amended the original statute is repealed, and the 2011 version of the statute does not exist and the current statute is not under injunction.
Chairperson Hawkins opened HB2674 that was tabled until today.
Eileen Ma gave a brief synopsis of the bill before it was tabled last week:
- Concannon made a motion to pass out, seconded by Rep Kelly;
- Ellis moved a balloon amendment, seconded by Blex;
- Kelly moved a substitute motion to divide the amendment into subsections a and b, seconded by Rep Osterman, that motion passed;
- On consideration of the non-severability clause which is subsection (b), Rep Barker made a motion to amend and later withdrew the motion;
- Concannon made a motion to strike subsection (b), seconded by Rep Kelly and the motion failed;
- Motion was made and passed to table the bill.
Eilleen Ma reported we are now back on subsection (b).
Representative Barker made a motion to amend subsection (b), seconded by Representative Powell.
Representative Barker reported that the non-severability clause in this bill was extremely broad and he asked the Revisors to draft a clause that was a very narrow non-severabilty clause so that if any part of the bill was struck down, the other parts of the bill would stand.
Eileen Ma stated she was asked to draft the narrowest possible severability - non-severability clause to insure that the bill would be preserved if anything was struck down and to leave the abortion language provisions of the bill non-severable. She then referred to the proposed balloon amendment's new Section 6 which states nothing in the Kansas Telemedicine Act shall be construed to authorize the delivery of any abortion procedure via telemedicine, and in Section 7 if anything in the Telemedicine Act is deemed unconstitutional, then the other parts of the bill will not be affected; therefore, if Section 6 is struck down the entire bill is struck down, but if any other section of the bill is struck down, the remainder of the bill still stands and only that section would be eliminated (Attachment 5).
Discussion followed with several ommittee members addressing the narrower language which they supported; however, they felt this wasn't a perfect bill, but it was a good starting point.
Representative Barker moved his amendment and the amendment passed on a voice vote which then action went back to the bill.
Representative Barker made a substitute motion to pass out HB2674 favorably as amended, Representative Eplee seconded the motion which passed out of committee as amended on a unanimous voice vote.
