H.B. No. 138 seeks to establish the Health Impact, Cost, and Coverage Analysis Program within the Texas Insurance Code by adding Subchapter J, Chapter 38. This program will be managed by the Center for Health Care Data at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and is designed to prepare analyses of legislative documents that impose new mandates on health benefit plan issuers or administrators. The program will conduct comprehensive assessments of the potential impacts of proposed legislation on public health, health coverage costs, and administrative expenses, with requests for analysis coming from key legislative figures.

To fund this initiative, the bill authorizes the comptroller to impose an annual fee on health maintenance organizations and insurers, which will be adjusted biennially. The bill also outlines the process for issuing special data calls to estimate administrative expenses related to specific legislation and mandates the preparation of reports detailing the findings of these analyses, ensuring transparency by making the reports available to legislative leaders and the public. The program is required to be established by January 1, 2026, and the comptroller must adopt necessary rules by the same date. The implementation of the program is contingent upon the legislature appropriating specific funds, and the Act will take effect immediately upon a two-thirds vote or on September 1, 2025, if that vote is not achieved.

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