Legislative Session Week 7
In this week's update: Fiscal Committee Cutoff, WSNA’s Priority Bills – Still Moving!, and Legislator Town Halls
February 28, 2017 • 3 minutes to read
In this week’s update:
- Fiscal Committee Cutoff
- WSNA’s Priority Bills – Still Moving!
- Legislator Town Halls
WSNA’s 2017 Legislative Priorities and issue-based one-pagers can be found here.
Fiscal Committee Cutoff
Friday, February 24th was the cutoff for policy bills to move out of fiscal committees in their house of origin. With last week’s cutoff, today marks the start of floor action, where bills will be heard and voted on by the full chamber in which they originated.
WSNA’s Priority Bills – Still Moving!
With Friday’s fiscal cutoff, there was mostly good news for WSNA’s priority bills – most passed out of the respective fiscal committees and are now poised for floor action. Here’s an update on our priority bills:
Nurse Staffing & Rest Breaks – Both HB 1714 (staffing) and HB 1715 (rest breaks) were heard in the House Appropriations this week. As expected, both bills passed out of Appropriations with “do pass” recommendations.
A substitute version of the Staffing bill, HB 1714, passed out of House Health Care and was the bill version heard in Appropriations. WSNA supports the substitute bill that requires hospitals to either implement the staffing plan from the Staffing Committee or to implement another staffing plan, and it includes a complaint system thru DOH with monetary penalties for failure to follow the staffing plan.
School Nurse Supervision – The House bill (SHB 1346) passed off of the House floor today, with a nearly unanimous vote. In the Senate, the bill (SB 5325) is in the Rules Committee – please follow the link below to email the Senate Rules Committee and ask that SB 5325 be pulled to the floor.
Balanced Billing (Medical Debt) – The new version of the Balanced Billing bill (HB 2114) was voted out of House Appropriations and was referred to the Rules Committee.
Secure Medicine Return – The Secure Medicine Return bill (HB 1047) also moved out of House Appropriations last week.
Public Health Policy Bills – HB 1432, which would put into statute the Foundational Public Health Services framework, passed out of House Appropriations last week.
Legislator Town Halls
Are you representing nurses and patients at the Town Hall in your legislative district?!
It’s the time of session when many state legislators are holding Town Hall Meetings back home in their districts. Attending a Town Hall Meeting is a great way to remind your legislators about the issues you care about.
A list of legislator Town Hall Meetings is available here. Some legislators have not yet scheduled their Town Halls, so if you don’t see your district listed, be sure to check back in a couple weeks!