The West Virginia House of Delegates passed 49 bills, including the following:
Senate Bill 531 would establish the First Amendment Preservation Act. This act would prohibit state agencies or any kind of organization receiving state funding from entering into a contract or agreement with a media reliability bias monitor. A media reliability bias monitor is any private entity why is rating news organizations on some kind of criteria, whether it be political leanings, misinformation, or disinformation, etc. An example provided in committee was an organization such as NewsGuard.
Senate Bill 586 would change the requirements for public water systems. This bill would make it so the Secretary of the Department of Health can not make rules that require public water systems or businesses to have low-hazard backflow preventers inspected more than once every three years. A backflow preventer is a device used to prevent contaminated water from flowing backwards into the public water supply.
Senate Bill 645 was debated, and an amendment from yesterday was reconsidered.
S.B 645 would prohibit out-of-network emergency medical services agencies from balance billing a covered enrollee in a health insurance plan for ground ambulance services. The bill establishes a minimum payment an insurer must make to an out-of-network emergency medical services agency for ambulance services. This bill was advanced as amended to the Senate.
Yesterday on the floor, an amendment was proposed to change the reimbursement rate of ambulance services from 400% to 150%. EMS Services currently receive a reimbursement rate of 50-60%, according to Delegate Adam Burkhammer (R – Lewis, 64). This amendment was rejected yesterday. Today, a motion was made to reconsider the amendment.
If a person makes a motion to reconsider, in accordance with House Rule 58, then a vote can be taken up again, regardless of the previous outcome.
During the debate, an attempt was made to table the reconsideration of the amendment. This motion failed with a vote of 38 to 57. The motion to reconsider the amendment passed with a vote of 49 to 46.
Following this, an amendment to the amendment was proposed by Delegate Joe Statler (R – Monongalia, 77) to change the reimbursement rate to 200%. In addition, Statler proposed a primary amendment that would allow EMS services to do additional billing
Delegate Daniel Linville (R – Cabell, 22) proposed an amendment that if the rate for ambulance services were to increase, then the reimbursement rate would not be greater than 5% or the medical care inflation rate established by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This amendment was rejected.
The House advanced 83 bills from second reading to third reading.
All bills on the agenda can be found here.
The House is adjourned until 10 a.m. Friday, March 13.
