In the six months leading up to this year’s legislative session, no state legislator came close to raising as much in campaign contributions as Sen. Clayton Hee.

His $65,000 total more than doubled the amount raised by the next most prolific fundraiser.

About $35,000 of Hee’s total came from people and entities, including several in Florida, linked to companies in the physician-dispensing medication business, according to campaign spending records and Joe Paduda, a mainland consultant who works for workers’ comp insurers.

Paduda in February blogged about Hee’s fundraising prowess and that he was chairman of a Senate committee that effectively killed an insurer-supported bill to cap prices for repackaged and compound medications.

Hee (D, Kahuku-Kaneohe) said he didn’t solicit funds from dispensing-related contributors and denied any connection between the contributions and his Judiciary and Labor Committee not hearing the price-cap bill.

Employees and others linked to Florida-based Automated HealthCare Solutions, which helps physicians dispense drugs, and Quality Care Products, which sells repackaged drugs to physicians, gave almost solely to Hee in the six months leading up to the session, according to the spending records.

House Bill 1243, the price-cap measure, passed the House last year and carried over to this year’s session, one of numerous bills pending before Hee’s committee.

In written responses to the Star-Advertiser, Hee said the bill wasn’t heard for multiple reasons.

He said no one asked him to hear the measure, no consumer groups pushed for it and the legislation wasn’t considered a priority among the more than 1,300 bills over the past two sessions that were referred to his panel, including 431 that were passed. Some of the priorities dealt with civil rights, energy and the environment.

Hee also noted that data from 16 mainland states in a 2011 Workers Compensation Research Institute study showed prices per prescription and per claim were actually higher for pharmacy-dispensed medications, raising more questions about the need for legislation.

Still, the Legislature should consider whether Hawaii’s medical fees in workers’ compensation cases should be adjusted and whether those fees have hurt access to speciality care or diminished the quality of care, Hee said. Those rates haven’t been reviewed by the Legislature in 14 years.

Cathy Wilson, regional director of Automated HealthCare, said she gave money to Hee’s campaign to get access to the legislator and to tell her company’s story to counter the misinformation spread by insurers. Wilson contributed $3,500 in December, according to state records.