Senator Steve West said Senate Bill 65 is the fifth iteration of a bill his committee files annually to address regulations the Administrative Regulations Committee finds deficient during the year. "Simply what it does is any regulation that's found deficient by our committee, during our meeting during a 1 year period ... we put that in a bill, and that regulation is officially, statutorily made null and void," West told the Senate State and Local Government Committee.

West told the committee the bill’s practical function is to collect and nullify regulations that the committee flagged as deficient. For the current year, only one subject-matter area produced a deficiency; that area involved two regulations proposed by the Department for Medicaid Services that would have raised the minimum education requirement for behavioral health associates from a bachelor’s degree to a master’s degree.

West described the committee’s review process: the regulation at issue was first considered in March and was deferred multiple times—West said it was deferred on eight separate occasions—while the committee and affected providers tried to reach a resolution. Providers testified that raising the degree requirement to a master’s degree "would have a detrimental effect and impact behavioral health services across the state," West said; the committee ultimately sided with providers and listed that subject area in SB 65.

When asked whether the cabinet had commented on impacts, West summarized that the cabinet had been engaged in the back-and-forth but the parties did not reach an agreement during the deferral period. The committee recorded a favorable report and advanced SB 65 to the floor by unanimous vote.

The committee’s action does not itself change Medicaid program rules; rather, it would statutorily nullify specified regulations the committee found deficient. West said the bill is procedural and reflects the committee’s limited statutory powers to flag and, through this bill, nullify regulations found deficient during the committee’s review cycle.