JOURNAL of the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES of the FIFTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE OF WYOMING SPECIAL SESSION JULY 12, 2004 THROUGH JULY 17, 2004 GENERAL SESSION JANUARY 11, 2005 THROUGH MARCH 3, 2005 1 H O U S E J O U R N A L FIFTY-EIGHTH STATE LEGISLATURE TABLE OF CONTENTS 2004 SPECIAL SESSION July 12, 2004 through July 17, 2004 Opening Proceedings............................................................................................................................... 1 House Bills, Numerical Listing ............................................................................................................... 17 Joint House Resolutions, Numerical Listing ......................................................................................... 33 Adjournment Proceedings ...................................................................................................................... 39 2005 GENERAL SESSION January 11, 2005 through March 3, 2005 Opening Proceedings............................................................................................................................... 42 State of the State Address ....................................................................................................................... 58 State of the Judiciary Address................................................................................................................ 62 Adoption of Rules .................................................................................................................................... 65 House Bills, Numerical Listing ............................................................................................................... 71 Joint House Resolutions, Numerical Listing ......................................................................................... 470 Adjournment Proceedings ...................................................................................................................... 478 APPENDIX Members of the House House Standing Committees Alphabetical List of House Bill and Resolution Catch Titles Alphabetical List of House Bill and Resolutions by Sponsor Subject Index Final Action Sheet 2 FIRST DAY SPECIAL SESSION OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FIFTY-SEVENTH STATE LEGISLATURE JULY 12, 2004 House Chamber At 10:00 a.m. Senate President April Brimmer Kunz called the Joint Session of the 57th Wyoming State Legislature, Special Session to order. The House Sergeant-at-Arms, Darrell Moore introduced the following honored guests and their escorts: Katie Freudenthal and The First Lady of Wyoming, Mrs. Nancy Freudenthal and his Excellency, The Governor of Wyoming, Dave Freudenthal, escorted by Senator Devin and Representative Childers and Representative Robinson. President Kunz acknowledged the following guests: The Honorable Joe Meyer, Secretary of State, The Honorable Max Maxfield, State Auditor, The Honorable Trent Blankenship, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and The Honorable William U. Hill, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Wyoming. The prayer was given by Father Thomas Cronkleton. GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS TO THE 2004 SPECIAL SESSION OF THE WYOMING LEGISLATURE Madame President, Mr. Speaker, members of the 57th Legislature, members of the Court, fellow elected officials and, most importantly, citizens of Wyoming: I appreciate this opportunity to speak to you this morning in accord with the Wyoming Constitution. To the members of the Legislature, a special welcome to your Capitol building. I am among the few people in the state who is actually pleased to see you here in session. I would also offer that there is no truth to the rumors that I turned off the air conditioning. I know it's going to be hot, but I offer this observation. There's air conditioning in the rest of the building but, for some reason, the Legislature in its wisdom chose not to air condition its chambers. To the extent your debate contributes to the heat, you might want to ease off a bit. To the extent it contributes to the light, I would encourage you to proceed. I want to observe with regard to the nature of this session that your presence here proves the Wyoming system of citizen legislators and time-limited legislative sessions does work. The opportunity for extra legislative sessions allows for the reexamination of significant issues which remained unresolved at the end of the regular session. Much comment has been devoted to the historic nature of our activities commencing this first session of the Legislature that was actually convened by the Legislature. While the method of convening may be notable, our conduct will determine whether or not we are embarked on an occasion of historical note. By way of illustration, I would offer the following. The anniversary of arguably the most important day in Wyoming's history, Statehood Day, passed this weekend with barely an acknowledgement of the day and certainly no reference to the people involved. Actions and deeds accomplished on and around Statehood Day, not the actors or the date, created the opportunity for all of us to be citizens of this great state. So it is with our endeavors this week. Ultimately, the test applied by our citizens and historians is the same: Were actions taken, and were deeds accomplished? People tell you and me throughout the state how worried they are that they are not getting or will not be able to receive the healthcare that they need. We owe it to them to make a difference this week; if we don't make a difference this week, they will take note. We're here to examine healthcare; healthcare costs, quality and accessibility will remain problematic at least for the next decade and perhaps for the next two decades. We should not attempt in these six days to solve all of the problems for all of the people. I continue to support your efforts to maintain a narrow and focused agenda, and I wish to commend the legislative leadership and the members of the committee for their work over the past several 3 weeks. You have accepted testimony from a broad range of people; you have visited issues that have been discussed. I believe the time is now for decisions. Your consideration of my three suggested goals for this session by the combined Judiciary and Appropriations committees is much appreciated. My remarks to the combined committee set three goals: first, the provision of some short-term relief for doctors facing the rapidly escalating costs of medical malpractice insurance; second, a promising proposal to create a medical errors commission. This proposal alters our historic approach to compensating victims and the provision of medical care and the recognition of medical errors. The third request was consideration of a simple proposal asking the voters whether they wished to authorize the legislature to consider limitations on non-economic damages in healthcare cases. We are, in this state, extremely lucky to have the advanced healthcare available to us in this state, the state with the smallest population in the country. But we do have a clear crisis of cost and availability. The crisis exists; the magnitude of it will only increase should we fail to act. I'll deal with each of those three issues. The first is the question of subsidies. I reluctantly endorsed a limited, short- term premium assistance proposal to help retain healthcare professionals in Wyoming. The premium assistance suggested was 25 percent of premiums, with a maximum amount of $35,000 per physician. This was properly referred to as a subsidy. Now, subsidy is a word none of us like to use, but it is in fact a subsidy, and the government engages in them all the time. A subsidy is defined in the dictionary as "a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public." This broad-based premium assistance proposal did not survive the legislative committee process and is not to be considered in this session. Two other subsidy proposals are offered by the Appropriations Committee and are set forth for your consideration. One proposal targets the serious problems in maintaining obstetrics services. House Bill 1009 authorizes a 100 percent reimbursement rate for the providers' usual and customary bills. This measure appropriates $2.8 million in state funds and $3.5 million in federal funds. While I respect the human impulse that lies behind the proposal, we need to recognize that the added funds of this proposal go only to those physicians providing obstetrics services to Medicaid recipients. Others in the medical profession facing similar problems will not benefit. I would also caution you that a decision to increase reimbursement rates to 100 percent is unlikely to be reversed in the future. This may turn out to be a one-way street. The second subsidy proposal is House Bill 1011. Contained in it is a two percent, five-year repayment loan program available only to a limited set of physicians meeting certain criteria. Among those criteria is that the coverage is no longer available due to either the insolvency of the insurer or the withdrawal of the insurer from the medical malpractice insurance market in the state. The appropriation attached to this bill is $8.2 million. Again, this is a relatively narrow field of people for whom assistance would be provided. I encourage your careful deliberation on all of these matters. In this context of state assistance for healthcare providers, I am encouraged by the committee's recommendation to submit to the voters a constitutional amendment to allow