Deadline Data: Joint Committee on Health Care Financing

Each legislative session in Massachusetts includes a deadline for joint committees to report their bills out to the House and Senate floor. For most joint committees, this date was February 2nd of this year.Many extension orders were given, pushing that deadline down the road.  However, one committee differs from the rest: the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing (HCF). Their deadline was last week on March 30th. 

Why does HCF have a later deadline? This is due to the fact that it receives a vast amount of legislation previously reviewed by other committees. Our data reveals some interesting trends from this session’s HCF deadline, and how the committee greatly differs from others in the Massachusetts legislature.

As of April 4th, there have been 160 bills reported out of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, with a surprisingly equal number of bills being sent to study and reported favorably. 75 bills fall into each of these categories. HCF has had an exact 1:1 ratio in terms of the legislation it has voted on. It should be noted that 38 of these bills are carrying one or more bills being reported out, meaning that the HCF committee attached similar legislation to one main bill in these cases.

That said, in comparison to other joint committees at the February 2nd deadline, HCF has the smallest gap between the percentage of bills reported favorably and sent to study. The joint committee also boasts the 6th highest passage rate of all committees, while having significantly more legislation than the five committees ranked ahead of it.

One aforementioned reason for why this is the case is that the HCF committee receives many bills previously passed in other committees. 44.4% of the bills either sent to study or reported favorably were previously passed out of nine different joint committees in the legislature. As shown by the above graphic, the Joint Committee on Public Health accounted for a large number of these bills. The subsequent assignment to HCF is frequently because HCF needs to approve funding and administrative provisions in the legislation. The HCF committee is not a mere rubber stamp however, as many bills from other committees still did not pass, and 55.6% of the reported legislation originated in HCF. 

While differing in a number of ways to other joint committees, HCF similarly has a significant amount of legislation that has received extension orders. 178 bills remain up for discussion and will likely be decided on in the coming months. 

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