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Introduced Version Senate Bill 655 History

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Key: Green = existing Code. Red = new code to be enacted
Senate Bill No. 655

(By Senators Wells, Hunter, White, Minard, Bailey, Love, Barnes, Green, Sypolt and Kessler)

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[Introduced February 13, 2008; referred to the Committee on Banking and Insurance; and then to the Committee on Finance.]

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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated §5-16-7f, relating to public employees insurance coverage for maternity and post-delivery care to dependants of state employees who become pregnant.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated §5-16-7f, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 16. WEST VIRGINIA PUBLIC EMPLOYEES INSURANCE ACT.
§5-16-7f. Required coverage for maternity and post-delivery care for dependents of an employee.

(a) All group hospital and surgical insurance plan or plans or any group major medical insurance plan or plans for eligible employees offered pursuant to this article shall include:
(1) Maternity benefits for any dependent of an employee who becomes pregnant. This includes coverage for inpatient care in a duly licensed health care facility for the dependant mother and her newly born infant for the time which the attending physician considers medically necessary for the dependant mother or her newly born child. A plan may not deny payment for a dependant mother or her newborn child prior to forty-eight hours following a vaginal delivery, or prior to ninety-six hours following a caesarean section delivery, if the attending physician considers discharge medically inappropriate; and
(2) Post-delivery care to a dependant mother and her newly born child in the home, coverage for inpatient care following childbirth as provided in subdivision (1) of this subsection if inpatient care is determined to be medically necessary by the attending physician. Those plans may also include, but are not limited to, medicines, medical equipment, prosthetic appliances, and any other inpatient and outpatient services and expenses considered appropriate and desirable by the agency. Following medically necessary post-delivery care the dependant mother and her newly born child shall immediately transition to the Right from the Start Program operated by the Bureau for Public Health.
(b) For purposes of this section a dependant or dependant mother is an unemancipated minor residing with the employee who is neither married nor who has been emancipated pursuant to applicable federal law or as provided by section twenty-seven, article seven, chapter forty-nine of this code.


NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide maternity benefit coverage and post-delivery care for pregnant dependants of state employees.

This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.
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