Archives: Bills

HB 178 directs Georgia’s Department of Community Health to seek federal approval to provide Medicaid coverage to low-income Georgians living with HIV. The program would offer comprehensive health services, including antiretroviral medications, to eligible individuals. To qualify, participants must have an HIV diagnosis, earn less than 138% of the federal poverty level, and lack other health coverage. This bill aims to improve health outcomes, reduce transmission rates, and lower health care costs by providing early access to treatment.

SB 50 would establish PeachCare Plus, a new health coverage program for low-income adults in Georgia. The program would fully cover premiums and out-of-pocket costs for private health plans on Georgia Access, the state’s health insurance marketplace. Adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level would be eligible. The Department of Community Health would oversee the program, with guidance from a bipartisan advisory commission. Any state savings would support the Indigent Care Trust Fund, which helps hospitals care for uninsured patients.

HB 94 would require state-regulated health plans to cover fertility preservation services for people undergoing medical treatments for cancer, sickle cell disease, or lupus that could lead to infertility. These services include procedures like freezing eggs, sperm, or embryos to help individuals have children in the future. The bill also sets guidelines and limits for what insurance must cover, such as evaluation costs, medications, and one year of storage for reproductive cells. Limits include restrictions based on age and the number of procedures covered.

HB 89 aims to improve how the state of Georgia collects information on maternal deaths and provides care for mothers and babies. It gives the Maternal Mortality Review Committee more access to patient records, including mental health and pharmacy records, to better understand why mothers pass away during pregnancy or childbirth. The bill also creates a Regional Perinatal Center Advisory Committee, which will help make sure hospitals and doctors have the right resources to care for high-risk pregnancies and births. Lastly, the bill simplifies the process for investigating the deaths of pregnant women, so medical examiners don’t always have to go through a regional perinatal center unless special circumstances require it.

HB 81 would allow Georgia to join the Interstate Compact for School Psychologists. This compact makes it easier for school psychologists to work in different states by simplifying the licensing process. It also helps address the shortage of these professionals in schools. The bill creates a commission to manage the compact. It also sets rules for sharing information, handling discipline issues (for school psychologists, not students), solving disputes, and how states can join or leave the compact. The goal is to give students better access to school psychologists while still allowing each state to set its own licensure requirements.

SB 5 requires health insurers that use prior authorization requirements to create a Gold Card program that reduces or removes prior authorization requirements for health care providers who demonstrate a strong track record of following evidence-based medicine. The goal is to reduce administrative burdens for providers and insurers while ensuring high-quality care for patients. SB 5 was amended by the House to include the language from HB 124, which requires insurers to cover treatment for PANS and PANDAS (autoimmune diseases that can develop after a case of strep throat).

SB 1 mandates that students participate in school sports and use facilities based on their biological sex at birth, as documented on their birth certificate. The bill explicitly excludes transgender students from joining teams or using shared spaces aligning with their gender identity and outlines financial penalties for schools that violate the transgender athlete ban. Among other changes, the substitute language replaces all references to “gender” in the code section with “sex”, allows for someone who believes they’ve been harmed by another person violating this law to seek damages, and expands the application to include private schools that receive state funding.