STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2226

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2045

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2045 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE COLORECTAL CANCER SCREENING PILOT PROGRAM,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

     (1)  Establish a Hawaii colorectal cancer screening awareness pilot program using the Hawaii comprehensive breast and cervical cancer control program as a model; and

     (2)  Appropriate funds for the first year of the pilot program.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health, American Cancer Society, The Queen's Health Systems, and six individuals.

     Your Committee finds that colorectal cancer, often referred to as colon cancer, is a dangerous and deadly cancer that affects approximately nine hundred people in Hawaii each year.  Your Committee further finds that a screening program for colorectal cancer will increase detections of cancers at an early state, improving chances for survival and decreasing mortality rates.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2045, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2045, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

____________________________

JOSH GREEN, Chair