More discussion, clarifications sought on 4 bills

The House Ways and Means Committee has decided to table four bills, in order to further discuss their contents and purposes.

House Bills 21-4, 2-5, 21-12, and 21-12 were on the agenda when the committee met last week but committee chair Rep. Ivan A. Blanco (R-Saipan) said that, in the case of H.B. 21-5, which aims to prioritize funding for the CNMI Medicaid Agency and the indigent program of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., he said he wants more information from CHCC.

“We want to reach out to CHCC to find out who falls under uncompensated care and how much per person. For example, when we give money to uncompensated care, we don’t say ‘uncompensated care’; we say indigent. There’s a different definition from CHCC. …Our intent is [to define] indigents [as] those who can’t afford [to pay],” Blanco told Saipan Tribune.

With “indigent” defined as those who can’t afford to pay their hospital bill, there are other individuals who could fall into that category, he said.

“What about overstayers? Those who don’t have a status or were affected by the CW1 cap—are they also indigent? But the hospital can’t turn them away, because when [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] took over federal immigration, we believe that overstayers are [also] under their care. If they are going to the hospital, we’re going to pick up the tab,” he said.

Blanco said the committee wants to know how the hospital would specifically define “indigent”—whether they are overstayers, of Northern Marianas descent, or citizens of Freely Associated States, like those from the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, or Palau. “

So, we would be able to target how much money would go to each [group],” he said. “If it’s overstayers and…FAS [citizens], can we…bill…the federal government? I know the federal government provides Compact Impact funds for FAS citizens. I don’t know if that’s enough but, for the overstayers, what would we do? That’s why, we tabled the bill.”

Also tabled was H.B. 21-4, which would include the Marianas Visitors Authority and the Office of the Public Auditor among the agencies exempted from the salary limitations imposed by the Compensation Adjustment Act.

He said this was the recommendation of Public Auditor Michael Pai “because there’s an earlier bill that, even if we adopt this one and pass it, it would still not allow him to…raise the ceiling for the salary.”

The other two bills are: H.B. 21-12, which would establish the level of funding for the Legislature and provide the Legislature with control over the expenditure of funds appropriated for its operations and H.B. 21-15, which aims to amend the disposition of the gross revenue tax.