Vehicle registration updates, how-tos for emergency elections, medical marijuana, etc.
A contingent of new Minnesota laws – courtesy of the Minnesota Legislature – will be going into effect on January 1, 2016. Included in the list are motor vehicle registration updates, regulations on conducting elections in a time of emergency and additional qualifying conditions for medical marijuana.
New laws in 2016 are –
+ Beginning January 1, 2016, every owner applying for a motor vehicle or motorcycle registration or transfer of ownership, must provide proof that the vehicle is covered by an insurance policy. Required information includes the insurance company’s name, policy number and policy expiration date.
+ Direction on potential emergency scenarios that could impact elections, including determining who has authority to address an emergency situation, what the costs would be of disrupting elections due to an emergency, ballot security during an event, continuity of operations procedures and defining communication procedures and key emergency contacts.
+ Intractable, or chronic, pain was added to the list of qualifying medical conditions for use of medical cannabis in December after a public hearing. The commissioner of health is required to report findings to the Task Force on Medical Cannabis Therapeutic Research on the need for adding intractable pain to the list of qualifying conditions.
+ Automated license plate readers used by many community law enforcement agencies have raised data privacy issues. A provision in a new law will require the chief law enforcement officer of an agency using automated licence plate readers, by January 15, 2016, to establish and enforce a written policy governing use of the reader. The policy is required to include employee discipline standards for unauthorized access to the data.
+ Response ability of patients caught in the following situation: the Internal Revenue Service has rules requiring nonprofit hospitals to tell patients of any financial assistance policy they have before they undertake extraordinary collection efforts. There is no recourse, though in the state, though, for a patient who thinks they were harmed by the violation of these rules. Under the new law, a patient can bring an action against a hospital that used such collection efforts and has not provided – in plain language – a summary of their financial assistance policy.
+ Electronic document filing will be allowed in contested case hearings. The new law will allow individuals and agencies in contested case hearings to file documents electronically with the Office of Administrative Hearings. Contested case hearings are ways for individuals who feel they have been adversely impacted by a governmental action to argue their case before an independent body. It is the Office of Administrative Hearings that conducts such hearings.
+ A provision has been added to a July 1, 2015 new law that addresses affordability of long-term care insurance polices that addresses disability income. Under the provision, policy providers with a standard of review will no longer be allowed to indiscriminately deny claims for services for which the enrollee is otherwise entitled. This disability income coverage provision applies to policies issued or renewed on or after January 1,2016.
