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Legislative Issues Committee

Members of the Legislative Issues Committee review legislation and public policy affecting health care, share findings with the membership, communicate to Legislators, and represent KONL, Inc. at state hearings, as needed. 2026 Committee members are:

Meeting actions for 2016 are as follows for KONL member information.

Meetings:

The Committee met January 6th and formulated legislative priorities upon which to focus. These included any bills related to 1) healthcare workforce safety; 2) nursing shortage or staffing; 3) healthcare access by citizens of the commonwealth; and 4) Kentucky health and welfare issues such as trauma care, high acuity patients, vaccinations, etc. Resources available to the committee were shared and included how to track KY legislative bills, the 2026 KY legislative calendar, the KHA priorities, and information about "Nurses Day at the Capitol". 

The Committee met January 27th and reviewed 30 KY legislative bills filed which related to the four legislative issue priorities. The committee agreed to recommend four legislative advocacy actions to the KONL Board for approval. These were: 

1) Join KHA and KNA in supporting HB 134 (SANE Coordinator) which creates a new section of KRS to require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to employ a health professional as a statewide sexual assault nurse (SANE) coordinator. (This bill builds on last year's KHA efforts around SANE services and would develop a coordinator who would develop a statewide strategic plan to ensure SANE coverage for KY hospitals and develop a statewide registry of SANEs by December 2026.)

2) Support HB 176 (Prior Authorization) which creates new sections of KRS 304 and prohibits health benefit insurers from requiring prior authorization for health care services for which the provider has an exemption and requires those plans to establish a program under which participant providers may establish an exemption. (KHA and KNA are monitoring this bill at present.)

3) Join KHA and KNA in supporting SB 12 (Level IV Trauma Centers/APRN which amends KRS 211.492 to allow Level IV verified trauma centers to utilize physician assistants and APRNs who are supervised by physicians to cover emergency departments and require the Department for Public Health to promulgate administrative regulations to conform. (The committee discussed the need to further clarify the meaning of "who are supervised by physicians" but recognized the difficulty of rural or critical access hospitals in obtaining full time emergency department physician coverage and the need for Level IV trauma care in geographically isolated areas.)

4) Oppose HB 466 (Immunizations) which amends KRS 214.034 to delete hepatitis B from the list of required immunizations from being required by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services without the approval of the General Assembly and deletes the requirement for hepatitis B immunization for sixth grade school attendance. (At the time of the meeting, the KNA had not met to review this bill, but in the past has opposed legislation which deletes existing immunization statutes/regulations. KHA is monitoring this bill and another potential bill which would limit organization's ability to require immunizations.)

The KONL Board approved these recommendations on 1/29/26.