The Social Services Subcommittee advanced six bills — covering opioid response coordination, early intervention services, children's health coverage, early literacy, and autism training — while laying a universal children's health care bill on the table for further study. Most bills were referred unanimously to Appropriations, with one passing 5-1 and one with an unclear final vote tally.
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Mitchell Cornett questioned whether the bill addresses anything beyond existing Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, asking patron Nadarius E. Clark for specific instances where HB 280 would cover children outside of those programs. Clark deferred to Bjorn Coxvold, who described operational gaps requiring a full-time health coordinator and mobile clinics rather than directly answering the coverage gap question.
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“Opponents of this bill will argue that it costs too much. But we should ask the question, what does it cost us not to act? When children lack preventive care, the state pays later through emergency room visits, unmanaged chronic illness, special education needs and loss economic productivity.”
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Sign in to subscribeGood afternoon and welcome to the first social services subcommittee meeting of 2026. Thank you so much to everyone for being here. Please mark your presence on the. On the electronic board. I don't think it's all popping up. It's not working. All right. Madam Clerk is going to see if we can fix our connection. All right, you know what can we do? Oral voice, Roll call. Just one second. As we get. Oh, here it comes back up. Oh, the same people are still on the board. Shin. Present. Gardner. Present. Henson. Here. Cohen. Here. Cole. Here. Walker. Present. Cornet. Willett. Here. Tran. Here. Okay, so you have a quorum. Great. We have a quorum. And now we're going to get started. We have a couple of administrative tests first. One second. We have several bills where the patron has asked that we take them by for this week. House Bill 87 from Delegate Law Firm. House Bill 297 from Delegate Sebold. House Bill 425 from Delegate Levir Bowling. If I can get a motion to move those by in a block. Okay, that's been motioned and properly seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed?…
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