This Act creates the Delaware Health Insurance Individual Market Stabilization Reinsurance Program & Fund (the “Program”). The Program will be administered by the Delaware Health Care Commission in order to provide reinsurance to health insurance carriers that offer individual health benefit plans in Delaware. The Program will be funded with passthrough funds received from the federal government under the Affordable Care Act, funds provided by the Federal Government for reinsurance, and through a 2.75% annual assessment based on insurance carrier’s premium tax liability.
Delaware is one of only 3 states that does not offer some form of adult dental coverage through Medicaid (alongside Tennessee and Alabama). Dental care is health care. And, studies have shown that poor dental health care can result in serious infections and abscess in the face, neck, and jaw areas requiring some individuals to go to the emergency room where they may spend days in intensive care or even die. This ultimately costs states more money through their Medicaid program that could be saved if dental care were covered. This Act expands Delaware’s Public Assistance Code to provide dental care to all eligible adult Medicaid recipients. Payments for dental care treatments are subject to a $3 recipient copay and the total amount of dental care assistance provided to an eligible recipient may not exceed $1,000 per year, except that an additional $1,500 may be authorized on an emergency basis for dental care treatments through a review process established by the Department of Health and Social Services. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. This Substitute Act differs from Senate Bill No. 92 (150th General Assembly) because it changes the effective date of this Act to be April 1, 2020, and removes provisions made unnecessary by the change.
I am thrilled that House Bill 90, which will require annual suicide prevention training for public school employees, passed in the Senate on Wednesday, May 13.
I worked hard with House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst to get this critically important legislation to Gov. Markell’s desk.
The legislation strengthens the safety net for at-risk youth by requiring educators and administrators to learn how to identify warning signs. It also requires schools to establish suicide prevention and response committees, as well as craft suicide prevention policies that include procedures for confidential and anonymous reporting of at-risk behaviors. Those components must be in place by the time the 2016 school year begins.
The legislation was announced last month at a press conference at the Delaware City Community Center, which has a mentorship program for at-risk teenagers in the Police Athletic League’s Suicide and Violence Education (SAVE) program.
Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among youth between the ages of 10 and 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A survey of American high school students found that 16 percent had considered suicide in the last year, 13 percent made plans to end their own lives and 8 percent attempted to do so.
We owe it to our kids to make sure the right people and processes are in place in our schools, so it’s more likely our kids get the help they need, when they need it.
I was honored to be chosen as a public servant recipient of the Delaware Bio Award at a banquet last month.
I was pleased to work with Sen. Bethany Hall-Long and Rep. Mike Barbieri to secure the passage of Senate Bill 118, which passed unanimously in the General Assembly last year. The legislation helped Delaware anticipate some of the regulatory issues biosimilars present ahead of their introduction to the market.
When a range of groups, from the Arthritis Foundation to the International Cancer Advocacy Network, testified that biosimilars offer the hope of breakthroughs in treatment, I wanted to make sure Delaware was ready.
The biomedicine and pharmaceutical industries are a big part of our state economy, and they do important work here and around the globe to improve lives and public health. We should be incentivizing ingenuity and I believe that when the FDA deems a drug safe, we should help make it available to the people who need it.
With SB 118, we strived to strike the appropriate balance between giving doctors flexibility in treating patients freely with a need for them to provide guidance to pharmacies as to how to dispense these new medications. Because of the uniqueness of these drugs – which are made from living cells – the automatic substitution for a generic drug can’t always work. That’s why this bill requires physicians and pharmacists to share data through dispensation records and substitution tracking.
I thank Delaware Bio for the award and I am humbled by it, because I know it took the hard work of a lot of people – from the public sector to industry experts to medical professionals – to get this groundbreaking legislation passed through our General Assembly unanimously.
HB-89 – An Act to Amend Title 14 of the Delaware Code Relating to Education and the School District Enrollment Choice Program
Senate Sponsor[s]: Hall-Long
Senate Co-sponsor[s]: Blevins, Poore
Synopsis: Allows the construction of free-standing acute inpatient rehabilitation hospitals without the need for certificates of public reviews and imposes a two-year sunset on construction without a certificate of public review.
Synopsis: Requires distribution of materials on Sudden Cardiac Arrest to scholastic athletes and their families and mandates training on dealing with Sudden Cardiac Arrest for officials and coaches.
Status: Senate Health and Social Services Committee (as of 9/17/2013)
SB-118 – An Act to Amend Title 24 of the Delaware Code Relating to Pharmacists
Sponsor[s]: Poore, Hall-Long
Co-sponsor[s]: Ennis, Henry
Synopsis: Allows pharmacists to substitute FDA-approved interchangeable biosimilar products for biological products with safeguards and provides some liability protections. To make a substitution, pharmacists must provide notice, make and maintain a label information/distribution record. Records would be maintained for three years.
