Dear 151st District Constituents,


Greetings! I hope this Capitol Report finds you and your family doing well!  I apologize for the lengthy Capitol Report this week, I have combined last week’s report into this one due to not being able to send last week’s report due to internet issues. 
 


I have been very busy these past two weeks since trying to reconnect with everyone.  I have attended several meetings locally of various groups and organizations.  I have been blessed with the privilege of being able to eat or volunteer at most of our local senior centers, I will hopefully be able to be at them all again soon! 
 
I have attended several policy related meetings including one in Columbia regarding healthcare data sharing.  This meeting was very informative and the discussion has actually led to much more discussion.

The big question that I have from this meeting is “What type of policies do we need to have in place and how do these policies need to be worded or structured to protect a person’s right to privacy while also using the available technology to allow healthcare information to be shared when needed for healthcare purposes of the person?”. 

I hope to have an answer to this question, or at least some thoughts toward an answer by the end of this year so that this question may be addressed during the next session.
 


Later this month I will be attending a meeting in Washington DC regarding Medicaid Health Policy.  I have several questions that I am preparing to ask at this meeting.  There are so many changes happening currently in healthcare and with the Supreme Court decision regarding Obamacare, I feel that we will see even more changes in our healthcare.  I hope this meeting will help to prepare me as we plan to meet the challenges ahead of us. 
 


There are many issues that myself and my office are looking at regarding education.  We have been reviewing the teacher and student testing issues.  Currently I am comparing the “old” competencies with the “new”.  There have been so many changes recently but I am not sure that our teachers have been consulted.  I would like to find a way to return to more local decisions being made regarding curriculum.  I do not agree with the way the decisions are currently being made from “higher up” and then being passed down without input from our teachers and local school boards. 

I will keep you posted as work continues on this. 
 
I am looking forward to this next week, I will be able to attend my first meeting of the Joint Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect.  We will be hearing from the Juvenile Office regarding how this office works, scope of practice and authority.  I have many questions and hope to learn the process of how a child enters the juvenile system and exactly what a normal progression looks like as one would go through this process.  I am most interested in learning what the progression looks like from the eyes of a child and the eyes of the parent. 



I will close for now but please feel free to call my office or my cell number if I can be of service to you!



Until next week,
Tila