Legislature(1993 - 1994)
03/17/1993 03:00 PM House HES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 128: EARLY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF PATERNITY Number 045 REP. BETTYE DAVIS spoke as PRIME SPONSOR of HB 128. She read a sponsor statement (on file in the committee room) which outlined the problems with establishing paternity for children born to unwed parents. She said HB 128 would require the state to have unwed parents sign a form with their name and social security numbers, allowing the child access to social security, survivor and veteran benefits, worker compensation, health insurance, inheritance and other benefits. It would make it easier for the state to collect child support payments from fathers. It would help fathers maintain the right to see their children regardless of their marital status. REP. DAVIS said there were 7,199 paternity verification cases pending with the Alaska Child Support Enforcement Division in December, 1992. She said the bill would save Alaska money, and cited the state of Virginia, which she said saved about $440 per case by establishing paternity through forms instead of court proceedings. She said Virginia's child enforcement division has saved about $126,700 for 228 hospitals. She noted the $12,600 fiscal note from the Department of Health and Social Services, which she said would be used to develop the necessary forms. Number 153 AL ZANGRI, CHIEF, BUREAU OF VITAL STATISTICS, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES (DHSS), testified in Juneau in support of HB 128, saying it would help the department accomplish what it already did. He handed out the brochure the department gave to new parents concerning the benefits of establishing paternity. Number 164 REP. BUNDE repeated for clarification that DHSS supported the bill and that new parents are more likely to acknowledge paternity and fill out forms. MR. ZANGRI said up to half of single parents at some hospitals were signing affidavits of paternity. He said the DHSS also worked with the state divisions of Child Support, Public Assistance and Family and Youth Services to get affidavits signed. Number 180 REP. BUNDE asked if DHSS had a position on section 2, paragraph 7, requiring hospitals to provide applications for public assistance. MR. ZANGRI said that hospitals already present such forms to unwed mothers, as it is in the hospitals' interest so that the hospital can get paid by the federal government for providing birth services. He said DHSS had no problem with the provision. Number 193 CHAIR TOOHEY expressed her preference to change the language of the bill, requiring public assistance forms to be provided to the mother if necessary. REP. B. DAVIS said forms would only go to those who qualified for Medicaid, and most single parents are already receiving Medicaid payments because they are receiving public assistance. Hospital staffers would know who should get what forms, she said. She stated hospital lobbyists told her that such paperwork is taken care of before maternity patients come into the hospital. She said the lobbyists said they had a problem with page 2, section 2, paragraph 3, and she had no objection to deleting that section, requiring hospital staffers to explain the benefits of establishing paternity, because the paternity forms would explain such benefits. REP. BUNDE clarified that she was speaking of section 2, paragraph 3. Number 225 REP. B. DAVIS moved deletion of section 2, paragraph 3. REP. VEZEY said he had a problem seeing what HB 128 would actually accomplish, or why unmarried fathers would hurry to sign paternity forms. CHAIR TOOHEY said there was a motion on the floor that needed to be addressed. Hearing no objection to the motion to delete section 2, paragraph 3, she declared the amendment passed. Number 248 REP. VEZEY moved deletion of all of section 2. REP. B. DAVIS objected, saying that would cut out the heart and guts of the bill. She attempted to explain the purpose of the bill, saying that if a mother on public assistance must identify the father of her child, a process which when done by the state child support division through the state court system costs the state about $500. The state can therefore save money if it can get parents, at the time of greatest pride and excitement about the birth of their child, to acknowledge paternity. Hospitals cooperate with such procedures to ensure their payment from public assistance for the cost of providing birth services. Child support agencies could also apply to have hospitals be paid for such services directly from federal funds, not state funds. REP. DAVIS said 66 percent of money paid out through such programs in other states is paid by the federal government, with the rest coming from state child support agencies, which are reimbursed by parents through child support payments. (Rep. Nicholia arrived at 3:21 p.m.) Number 276 REP. VEZEY said he did not propose deleting section 1, the provision for filling out forms, though he questioned what the bill would accomplish. He said he had proposed deleting section 2, which he interpreted as a mandate for private health care providers to provide counseling session. REP. B. DAVIS said hospital administrators had told her that they already voluntarily provided such counseling and did not consider it onerous. She said HB 128 would merely make uniform a common state-wide practice. She said about 27 hospitals in Alaska would be affected by the bill, and it would be helpful to provide them with at least minimum guidelines. Number 303 REP. G. DAVIS said he believed deletion of section 2, paragraph 3, would take care of the counseling issue. He said that providing pamphlets to unwed fathers was a small, low-cost step toward addressing the problem of fathers' unwillingness to assume responsibility. Number 331 REP. BUNDE asked if any hospital staffers planned to testify. REP. B. DAVIS answered no, but she had been in a teleconference with a hospital lobbyist and an administrator at Humana Hospital in Anchorage that morning and had already gotten a letter from Fairbanks supporting the bill. Number 343 CHAIR TOOHEY said new mothers are presented with stacks of pamphlets on infant care when they leave the hospital with their newborns, and one more form that would allow mothers to track the father for child support was a small price to pay. She said she thought HB 128 was a good bill. REP. KOTT said he was concerned with section 2, paragraph A, line 13, of HB 128, which required a qualified hospital staffer to meet with a new mother. He said he hoped that such a meeting was already common practice. He expressed concern that mandating such counseling between a physician and patient might constitute invasion of privacy. He asked whether the state did not already have paternity forms, and if so, how would the new forms be better. He also asked whether the proposed forms would indicate that providing an address and social security number was optional. Number 370 MR. ZANGRI said DHSS already had paternity forms that require parents to provide their social security numbers and addresses, not as an option. He said, in fact, that HB 128 would require the currently used form to be changed only slightly to indicate that it constituted acknowledgement and proof of paternity. The bill would primarily put into law what is already done at the direction of DHSS, he said. REP. OLBERG said he understood Rep. Kott's philosophical reservations, but said that if the state were paying for the birth, then it was entitled to ask for whatever information it wanted. He said the state had a legitimate interest in obtaining paperwork that would allow the state to recover costs from the federal government. Number 387 REP. VEZEY said he did not see how HB 128 was limited to those who were receiving public assistance. REP. OLBERG said he believed that an unwed mother was a likely candidate for public assistance. Number 398 REP. B. DAVIS said the bill was an effort to help establish the paternity of a child born to unmarried parents so the state could later collect child support payments from the fathers if the mother applied for public assistance. She said the bill was a step in the direction of the national trend relying on child support agencies to collect various government financial obligations from fathers, including child support and federal income taxes. She referred to a March 16, 1993, newspaper article saying that provisions such as those in HB 128 would help address the difficulties in collecting child support from fathers. She said unwed parents are more willing to acknowledge their children at the time of birth than later. Number 420 REP. BUNDE asked how the bill would apply to women who did not want to acknowledge the fathers of their children. MR. ZANGRI answered that both parents had to acknowledge paternity for a father to be listed on their child's birth certificate, which was proof of his paternal responsibilities. If one or the other parent refused to acknowledge the other as parent of the child, then the issue would go to court, he said. Number 439 REP. G. DAVIS asked Rep. B. Davis about the provisions in section 2 concerning prenatal counseling by the hospital. He asked whether such counseling could not be accomplished in the context of the patient-doctor relationship, not the patient-hospital relationship. REP. B. DAVIS said it was possible that paternity was already a topic subject to patient-doctor confidentiality. She said she knew of no mandate that such counseling had to be done by the physician. Number 458 REP. BUNDE called the question. CHAIR TOOHEY, hearing objection to the motion, called for a roll call vote on the motion to delete section 2 of HB 128. Those voting yes were Reps. Vezey and Kott. Those voting no were Reps. Bunde, G. Davis, Olberg, B. Davis, Nicholia, Brice and Toohey. The motion FAILED 2-7. Number 470 REP. BUNDE moved deletion of section 2, paragraph 7. He said hospitals should not be in the social welfare or social work business, and the paragraph makes hospitals de facto state employees. REP. B. DAVIS said she understood the reason for the amendment, but she disagreed. She said hospitals have social workers on staff to do just the kind of work the bill proposed. She did not, however, object to deleting the paragraph. She proposed amending the bill so that the staff social worker, not other hospital staffers, would offer the welfare applications to new mothers. REP. BUNDE agreed that the amendment would not hurt the bill, but he repeated his belief that the state should not pass statutes mandating hospital staffs perform social work. He repeated earlier statements that those who qualified for Aid to Families with Dependent Children would likely already be enrolled. CHAIR TOOHEY said hospitals are involved because they want to be paid, and if Medicare is not included in the process, they won't be. Number 499 REP. BUNDE said that he did not want to see hospitals drumming up welfare business to make money. REP. G. DAVIS said hospitals don't attract patients, they treat patients, then seek to be paid for the treatment. Number 507 REP. B. DAVIS said she did not mind cutting the paragraph, as hospitals would see to it somehow that the patients got the forms necessary to enroll in welfare programs. She expressed the desire to have the bill move out of committee. REP. BRICE suggested amending the paragraph to allow hospitals the option of providing the application forms or not. Number 515 REP. BUNDE questioned the need for a statutory requirement of providing the applications was already standard practice. REP. BUNDE moved deletion of section 2, paragraph 7, in HB 128 and asked for unanimous consent. CHAIR TOOHEY asked for objections to the motion and, hearing none, declared the motion PASSED. Number 529 REP. KOTT said he objected to section 2, lines 21-25. While most of the section required staff members to perform certain duties, he said, lines 21-25 directed the DHSS to prepare and distribute a pamphlet. He said the paragraph was poorly constructed, and he expressed a desire that it be addressed before passage from the committee. REP. B. DAVIS asked whether it was true that DHSS would have to prepare the pamphlets. Number 540 MR. ZANGRI answered that DHSS did distribute the pamphlets, but they were produced jointly with the Department of Revenue's Child Support Enforcement Division. He said the federal child support enforcement services also provided some funds for that purpose. REP. B. DAVIS said there was nothing wrong with having DHSS included in the paragraph. Number 546 CHAIR TOOHEY noted that the bill required that DHSS would only provide pamphlets, not become involved with the parents. SHERRIE GOLL, a lobbyist for the ALASKA WOMEN'S LOBBY, testified in Juneau in support of HB 128. She said the bill would help take advantage of the father's initial pride at the birth of a child to have him commit to assuming paternal responsibility. She said she was surprised that fiscal notes did not reflect probable savings from establishing paternity easily and early in a child's life. MS. GOLL stated, "Child support agency is required to do child support enforcement for any person who comes, even in the state, whether or not they are on welfare. And this will give the child the right to the father's name. We heard Children's Caucus today how important it was to have a child who knew who his or her father was, and I think there would be real benefit to this, and certainly fiscal benefit to the state. Thank you." Number 566 (Rep. Toohey left at 3:48 p.m.) REP. BUNDE assumed the chair, as Rep. Toohey had to leave the meeting for another appointment. GLENDA STRAUBE testified via teleconference from Anchorage on behalf of the ASSOCIATION OF CHILDREN FOR ENFORCEMENT SUPPORT (ACES) in support of HB 128. She said it is good for children to know who their fathers are. It is also good for the government to know the name and social security number of fathers, so that the fathers can take financial responsibility. TAPE 93-38, SIDE A Number 000 CHAIR BUNDE closed public testimony on HB 128 and invited discussion from the committee. Number 007 REP. NICHOLIA moved passage of HB 128 from the committee with individual recommendations. CHAIR BUNDE asked for objections, and, hearing none, declared HB 128 passed from the committee with individual recommendations, as amended. CHAIR BUNDE brought HB 122 to the table.
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