Committee adopts substitute to align correctional health rates with Medicare to aid forecasting

Representative Fia Fia presented House Bill 3 21, saying stakeholders including the University of Utah, the Department of Corrections and PEHP reached agreement on a second substitute that aligns corrections’ unsupplemented Medicaid base rate to Medicare rates to help the Department of Corrections better forecast and budget for inmate medical care.

The sponsor said the change ‘‘brings in some reasonable rates that will help corrections forecast and budget for the needs of their inmates’’ and emphasized the agreement was reached with major stakeholders. Representative Eliason questioned whether correctional health services (CHS) receive annual growth and inflation adjustments similar to Medicaid. A witness identified in the transcript as Dr. Wisner responded that CHS funding is currently "completely stagnant" and that growth and inflation are not considered, and also raised a concern that fiscal notes prepared by CHS had not been fully transmitted across committees.

No members of the public provided comment. The committee adopted the second substitute and then voted to favorably recommend HB321 (sub 2) to the House floor. The transcript records the committee vote as unanimous; the transcript does not specify numeric vote counts.