Legislative Process

One-and-a-half weeks to go, and we have many things to pull together. As is being reported, the House and Senate are having a difficult time coming together on the budget. Budget leaders for the House and the Governor's office spent the day putting together a budget proposal that hopefully will be helpful in breaking the log jam.

It is no small project, piecing together policy and budgetary items in a 45-day span. And, I remain confident that we'll have a budget.

A good example of how the process works is my Hospital Lien bill. Concerns were raised (regarding whether the health insurance policy of an accident victim should pick up medical costs or whether that party's potential 3rd-party recovery from the other driver's liability policy should be liened). The relevant parties (hospitals, insurers, lawyers who typically handle accident cases, and collection agencies) huddled together many times, made a little progress here and a little there, sent many drafts back and forth, and finally agreed to resolve the issue by way of a letter that will sit in my file (clarifying that the health insurance policy will be billed and that the insurer will be allowed to collect against the 3rd-party). Among other things, this issue involves millions of dollars and a lot of passion. The process brought parties together, and we worked it out -- without adding more pages to the code book.