---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 18 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENT HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE."
description: "This legislation creates a benchmark for determining when a treatment or service is no longer experimental or investigational. When Medicare determines that a treatment is safe for its population, commercial insurers in Delaware may no longer deny coverage on that basis. This bill will remove inconsistencies for properly-evidenced treatments between payers."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "149"
identifier: "HB 319"
citation: "Delaware HB 319 (149)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Bryon H. Short", "David P. Sokola"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 10
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2018-04-12"
last_action: "2018-06-13"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/ebd02218-0019-46bf-ab04-16a0db9e951c"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=26473"
source_hash: "afa4f7b70cdacff38aa7790093bf3cc29c85b0b8e79c58472d8d42bbbbc6960c"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware HB 319 (149) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 18 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENT HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE.

This legislation creates a benchmark for determining when a treatment or service is no longer experimental or investigational. When Medicare determines that a treatment is safe for its population, commercial insurers in Delaware may no longer deny coverage on that basis. This bill will remove inconsistencies for properly-evidenced treatments between payers.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=26473&legislationTypeId=6&docTypeId=2&legislationName=HS1)

## Votes

- SM — **41–0** (pass) · lower
- SM — **20–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Bryon H. Short — primary (person)
- David P. Sokola — primary (person)
- Andria L. Bennett — cosponsor (person)
- Brian Pettyjohn — cosponsor (person)
- David Bentz — cosponsor (person)
- David L. Wilson — cosponsor (person)
- Edward S. Osienski — cosponsor (person)
- Gerald L. Brady — cosponsor (person)
- Helene M. Keeley — cosponsor (person)
- John A. Kowalko — cosponsor (person)
- John J. Viola — cosponsor (person)
- John Walsh — cosponsor (person)
- Paul S. Baumbach — cosponsor (person)
- Quinton Johnson — cosponsor (person)
- Robert Marshall — cosponsor (person)
- Stephanie T. Bolden — cosponsor (person)
- Trey Charles Paradee — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2018-04-12** was introduced and adopted in lieu of HB 319 `introduction`
- **2018-04-12** Assigned to Economic Development/Banking/Insurance/Commerce Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2018-04-17** Amendment HA 1 to HS 1 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2018-04-18** Reported Out of Committee (Economic Development/Banking/Insurance/Commerce) in House with 7 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2018-04-24** Amendment HA 1 to HS 1 - Passed In House by Voice Vote `amendment-passage`
- **2018-04-24** Passed By House. Votes: 41 YES `passage`
- **2018-04-25** Assigned to Banking, Business & Insurance Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2018-05-02** Reported Out of Committee (Banking, Business & Insurance) in Senate with 1 Favorable, 3 On Its Merits `committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage`
- **2018-05-10** Passed By Senate. Votes: 20 YES 1 ABSENT `passage`
- **2018-06-13** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/ebd02218-0019-46bf-ab04-16a0db9e951c`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).