Sonnenberg-sponsored SB 53 faces uncertain future in State House

Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, won a surprising 23-10 vote on Senate Bill 53, which would allow a patient in a hospital or nursing home to have a family member visit during a pandemic.

The March 29 vote was bipartisan, with 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans in favor. The bill now heads to the House and an uncertain future, given that three previous House-sponsored bills on the same topic have failed to gain traction. Representative Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells, will sponsor the bill in the House. 

Sonnenberg is hopeful, telling this reporter those House measures did not address the concerns raised by hospitals and long-term care facilities.

The biggest opposition is likely to come from two Democratic state representatives — Reps. Yadira Caraveo, Thornton, and Kyle Mullica, Northglenn — both who are medical professionals, as well as the chair of the House Health and Insurance Committee, Rep. Susan Lontine, D-Denver.

However, the final vote in the Senate also included support from two senators who work in the medical profession. Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, Longmont, a pharmacist who had voted against the bill when it was in a Senate committee, changed to a “yes” for the final vote, stating she believed families should be able to visit their loved ones. Sen. Joann Ginal, Fort Collins, who is a reproductive endocrinologist, also voted in favor of SB 53.

Pelton is also the sponsor of several bills dealing with behavioral health, including one of the major ones of the 2022 session.

House Bill 1278 sets up the Behavioral Health Administration within the Department of Human Services, a follow-up to a bill Pelton carried last year that required DHS to come up with a plan for creating the new behavioral health agency. .

This year’s bill charges the BHA with creating a “coordinated, cohesive and effective behavioral health system” and that any state agency that administers a behavioral health program would be required to collaborate with the BHA.

The bill took two tries to get through its first committee, the House Public & Behavioral Health & Human Services Committee. 

“Who wants to be on a bill this big?” Pelton joked on March 25 (the bill is 232 pages). The goal is to create a more easily accessible, accountable and management system. A more efficient system should streamline the behavioral health system and produce more positive outcomes, he told the committee. The system needs an overhaul, he added.

One of the major provisions of the bill is to set up regional behavioral health entities, to be under the control of a county or local public health agency or non-profit. 

HB 1278 was amended more than a dozen times during its committee meeting, including an amendment from Pelton, suggested by county commissioners, to create regional advisory councils that will make recommendations on services to the State administration. Those councils will include county commissioners as well as people who have experience dealing with behavioral health services for children and youth.

Pelton told this reporter that while the BHA looks like bureaucracy, it will create efficiency by granting it oversight over the State’s behavioral programs, which are scattered among several different state agencies. “If we’re duplicating programs, maybe we can eliminate some and use that money elsewhere in the behavioral health field,” he said. 

The BHA will be a key player in how the General Assembly directs more than $400 million into behavioral health services and Pelton said he wants to see safeguards placed on some of the bills that will spend that money. That’s to ensure that counties have a say on those services, since it’s counties that know the needs in their communities, Pelton said. 

There’s a huge concern over suicide rates among farmers, ranchers and youth on the Eastern Plains, sometimes double the rate on the Front Range, Pelton said. “The dollars must go to rural. We have a big problem and we need attention” in rural Colorado. 

Secondly, Pelton said, there also is a lot of drug misuse, especially with fentanyl and those drugs are coming into the State along the big highways. Money for drug prevention and education should be a part of the mix, he added.

HB 1278 is now awaiting action from the House Appropriations Committee. 

Another Pelton bill on behavioral health, House Bill 1214, is just a few steps away from heading to the Governor’s desk, after it sailed through a Senate committee last week as well as receiving a quick review by the Senate on April 1. 

HB 1214 updates behavioral health crisis response services, also within the Department of Human Services, to improve access to those services. Crisis services must be available to those with substance abuse disorders, youth and those with disabilities.

Pelton told the House last month that the bill also promotes the use of telehealth in areas where there may not be a professional facility within a reasonable distance, such as on the Eastern Plains. 

Some individuals in behavioral health crises have been turned away from those service providers and instead diverted to emergency rooms because of ambiguity in the law about who those crisis response teams should serve, according to Sen. Chris Kolker, D-Centennial, who spoke about the bill in a March 28 hearing with the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

People with disabilities are being denied crisis services, such as a diabetic who is suicidal, or those with developmental disabilities, according to Julie Reiskin of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition. “If you’re in crisis it shouldn’t matter,” she explained, but people with disabilities are being sent to emergency rooms, which is costly for those on Medicaid, or sometimes the police are called and the person winds up in the criminal justice system.

The whole point of the nine-year-old response system was to be available to individuals, regardless of ability to pay, that those individuals would receive services within their communities and to reduce the number of people headed to emergency rooms and hospitals, according to Moe Keller of Mental Health Colorado. 

However, those with substance abuse problems are being turned away, despite claims that those services are supposed to be provided for those with substance issues and that lack of response is a major problem for their communities, Keller said.

For young people, waiting rooms at hospitals are full of children with mental health needs, including suicide attempts, but those crisis response centers can provide those services, Keller said. 

There are nine crisis centers around the state, including the North Range Behavioral Health Center in Greeley, as well as mobile response units. 

HB 1214 was amended by the Senate to clarify that the centers would offer screening services to minors, so after its final vote, the bill will have to head back to the House for a review of the amendment. 

Finally, the House has wrapped up the first round of work on the 2022-23 State budget, which would spend $36.4 billion. 

HB 1329 increases general fund spending — that’s the discretionary revenue that comes from individual and corporate income taxes and sales taxes — by $1.5 billion. Contained in that spending: more than 1,000 more state employees in areas such as public safety, the air quality control commission, the Department of Early Childhood, which is tasked with setting up State-paid preschool; and in behavioral health. 

The upcoming year's budget, however, does not include about $3 billion in federal American Rescue Plan Act money. That money would be spent on affordable housing, behavioral health services and economic recovery through legislation currently moving through the process. It isn’t included in the budget because the budget must be written under current law.

Among the changes from the House during its March 30 debate: a $75,000 boost in funding for the Agricultural Leadership Program; and $75,000 to Colorado State University to buy from the nonprofit Beef Sticks for Backpacks program, which is backed by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, Colorado Livestock Association and Five Rivers Cattle (which includes the Yuma Feedlot). Another amendment puts an additional $100,000 toward the AgNext Climate Change program at Colorado State. 

The 2022-23 budget now heads to the State Senate.