Legislative Update: Week 6

The GHF team prides itself on being able deliver timely and accurate updates on health care happenings at the Capitol. We hope that you enjoy reading our weekly legislative updates and that they help you stay informed and connected. If you enjoy them, please consider supporting our work with a donation today. Thank you for your continued support!

In this week’s update:

• Action alerts on childhood lead exposure and prior authorization bills
• Legislation on housing and Medicaid expansion!
• Advocacy events this week: housing & Asian Americans
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

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Legislative Update: Week 5

The GHF team enjoys keeping you in the loop with these weekly updates and you enjoy reading them! It takes time and effort to deliver this service to you in a complete and accurate way every week of Georgia’s legislative session. If these updates help keep you connected to the health happenings under the Gold Dome, please consider supporting our work with a donation today. Thank you very much!

In this week’s update:

• Vote expected tomorrow on bill to reduce the number of uninsured children in Georgia
• Legislation on telehealth, prescription drug savings, tobacco and vaping education, and more!
• Governor’s partial Medicaid expansion plan hits roadblock
• Advocacy events for your calendar
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

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Legislative Update: Week 4

Thank you for your readership and enthusiasm for GHF’s weekly legislative updates! The GHF team enjoys putting these updates together to keep you in the loop. We work hard to deliver this service to you in a complete and accurate way every week of Georgia’s legislative session. If you rely on these updates to keep you connected to the health happenings under the Gold Dome, please consider supporting our work with a donation today. Thank you very much!

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In this week’s update:

• Take action to reduce the number of uninsured children in Georgia
• Legislation on vaccine administration, lead poisoning in children, prior authorization, and a Medicaid public option!
• Advocacy events for your calendar
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

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Ramatu lives in Gwinnett County with her four children for whom Medicaid helps to meet their unique health needs. Medicaid provides a lifeline for Ramatu’s family and helps ensure that her children receive the health care they need. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 54% of Georgia children with special health care needs are covered by Medicaid. 

“Two of my kids are on straight Medicaid because of the severity of their disability. The other two, they are on what is called care services.”  –Ramatu

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Legislative Update: Week 7

Legislative session passes halfway mark

Last week marked the halfway point of the 2020 Georgia legislative session. The General Assembly was busy with legislative hearings and committee votes last week, illustrated well by the flurry of activity in all of the health-related committees. We have your complete updates below.

The Senate is expected to pass their version of the amended FY2020 state budget this week and work continues in the House on the FY2021 budget. Committee hearings will continue in earnest this week ahead of next week’s Crossover Day deadline. (Crossover Day is the 28th day of session and the deadline by which bills must pass the House or the Senate in order to remain viable to become law.)

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Effort to modernize HIV laws moves forward

HB 719 passed by House Health & Human Services committee

HB 719, sponsored by Rep. Deborah Silcox, would modernize Georgia’s HIV-related laws and make progress towards decriminalizing HIV. Current Georgia law deems it a felony for people living with HIV to have sex or donate blood without disclosing their status, or for spitting at or using bodily fluids on a law enforcement officer by a person living with HIV. Under HB 719 only the act of having sex without disclosing a person’s HIV status would remain illegal and the punishment for that would be downgraded to a misdemeanor. This legislation has the backing of LGBTQ+ advocates and public health professionals. 

The House Health & Human Services committee approved HB 719 on Wednesday. The bill will now be considered by the House Rules committee. 

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Addressing childhood lead exposure

Resolution introduced to establish study committee on child lead poisoning

Last year, 2,333 Georgia children under six years of age were found to have lead poisoning, which is irreversible and can cause speech, language, and behavioral problems, lower IQ levels, and nervous system damage. To address this issue, Rep. Katie Dempsey has introduced HR 1280 to establish a Joint Study Committee on Childhood Lead Exposure. The resolution has been referred to the House Health & Human Services committee for its consideration.

For more information on this important public health issue, check out this helpful fact sheet from Voices for Georgia’s Children.  

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Pharmacy benefit managers in the spotlight

Georgia’s House and Senate committees have taken a keen interest in legislation to change how pharmacy benefit managers operate in Georgia. Pharmacy benefit managers (commonly called PBMs) are companies that manage prescription drug benefits for health insurance companies. in order to secure lower prices on medications, PBMs have adopted practices that are seen as to burdensome by pharmacies, restrictive and hard-to-navigate by consumers, and opaque by elected officials. Here are a few of the bills that are moving forward that would reform PBM practices in Georgia.

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HB 918: Restricts onerous PBM audits of pharmacies

PBMs may audit the practices of pharmacies as part of their responsibilities for a health insurer. However, these audits can strain independent and small pharmacies with fewer employees. HB 918, sponsored by Rep. Sharon Cooper, puts in place limits on the practices of PBMs within these audits so that pharmacies can more easily meet audit requests and the benefit of the doubt is given to pharmacies when small or innocuous mistakes are discovered.

The House Special Committee on Access to Quality Health Care approved HB 918 on Friday. The bill will now be considered by the House Rules committee.

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HB 946: Increases accountability for PBMs

HB 946, sponsored by Rep. Matt Knight, would increase fines on PBMs when they “steer” consumers to specific pharmacies and would prohibit PBMs from paying affiliated pharmacies more than independent ones. The bill would require PBMs to pass along rebates to insurers (who would presumably pass those savings on to consumers) and would ban programs called “co-pay accumulators.” Co-pay accumulators increase out-of-pocket costs for consumers who need prescription drugs, especially those with expensive medications and those with high deductibles and other cost-sharing.

The House Special Committee on Access to Quality Health Care approved HB 946 on Friday. The bill will now be considered by the Hosue Rules committee.

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HB 947: Examining the costs of PBMs in Medicaid

HB 947, also sponsored by Rep. Matt Knight, would require Georgia’s Department of Community Health to complete an independent study to find out if Georgia would save money by removing the current PBM structure from its Medicaid plans. If the estimated savings are more than $20 million annually, Georgia would eliminate PBMs from most of the state’s Medicaid plans.

The House Special Committee on Access to Quality Health Care approved HB 946 on Friday. The bill will now be considered by the Hosue Rules committee.

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SB 313: Benchmarking for prescription drug prices

SB 313, sponsored by Senator Dean Burke, is expected to receive a vote today in the Senate Insurance & Labor committee.

This bill is consistent with HB 946 in many ways, although not an exact match. SB 313 requires that PBMs use the “national average drug acquisition cost,” as a reference point for reimbursing pharmacies for prescriptions. The bill also includes many of the same patient protections as those in HB 946. 

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GHF has you covered

Stay up-to-date with the legislative session

GHF will be monitoring legislative activity on a number of critical consumer health care topics. Along with our weekly legislative updates and timely analysis of bills, we have the tools you need to stay in touch with health policy under the Gold Dome.

• Sign up for the Georgia Health ActionNetwork (GHAN) to receive action alerts that let you know when there are opportunities for advocacy and action
• Track health-related legislation
• GHF’s 2019-2020 legislative priorities

Georgians for a Healthy Future hosted an educational forum titled Strong Foundations: Building a System of Care to Address the Behavioral Health Needs of Georgia Children on Tuesday, May 15. The forum explored the behavioral health needs of Georgia children and youth, Georgia’s publicly-supported behavioral health landscape, and successes and opportunities in the current system of care. The event also raised awareness about Georgia’s system of care in an effort to improve access to behavioral health services for children and youth.

The event began with Respect Institute speaker Tammie Harrison, who shared her experiences navigating the behavioral health care system and getting to a place of recovery.

Because many of the event attendees were new to the topic of children’s behavioral health (BH), GHF’s Executive Director Laura Colbert provided some foundational information about the prevalence of children’s BH conditions, contributors to poor BH, and the pathways to BH care and supports for young Georgians. You can find Laura’s PowerPoint slides here. She also debuted GHF’s new behavioral health fact sheet.

Dante McKay, Director of the Office of Children, Young Adults, & Families at the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) provided attendees with an overview of DBHDD’s work, the 2017 System of Care state plan, and how the recently signed FY19 budget would impact the department’s ability to serve Georgia children and youth.

Dr. Erica Fener-Sitkoff, Executive Director of Voices for Georgia’s Children moderated a panel discussion of BH service providers, which included Wendy Farmer of Behavioral Health Link, Laura Lucas of Project LAUNCH (DBHDD), and Monica McGannon of CHRIS 180. The panelists discussed barriers to accessing BH services, which they said include continued stigma, lack of trained workforce, and transportation. The panel also identified innovative efforts, like Project LAUNCH and mobile crisis services, to bring BH services closer to consumers when and where they need it. When asked how Georgia’s next Governor could continue to make progress in the area of children’s behavioral health, panelists suggested a focus on workforce development, increasing access to community-based substance use treatment for teens, and prevention and early intervention.

 

If you missed the event, a recording of the webcast is available here.

To see photos, review materials, and read more about our Strong Foundations event, please visit the event page.

GHF is partnering with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine to host post-doctoral fellow Lizeth “Liz” Camacho. Liz has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from San Diego State University and a Master’s in Community Psychology from Michigan State University. In 2016, she earned a PhD in Lifespan Human Development and Family Diversity. Liz has over ten years of community-based health research experience. Her research focuses on the relationship between social determinants of health, such as discrimination, poverty, and depression, as well as the role of resilience in mental health. She is passionate about behavioral health issues and mental health policy, with a special interest on diminishing mental health disparities. Liz is also interested in the role of public health, health policy, and advocacy in decreasing health inequalities, including access to care.

 

As part of her fellowship experience, Liz is completing a practicum at GHF where she is leading a research project focusing on children’s behavioral health needs and services in Georgia. The results of the research project will inform the work of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. The project seeks to understand how prevalent different behavioral health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and oppositional defiant disorder are in children and youth across the state, and how those health needs are currently being addressed. To better support the behavioral health needs of children and youth in need, the project will examine what existing programs or policies could be scaled up and what new policies or programs may need to be introduced. The project also aims to inform the DBHDD about issues related to the state’s pediatric and youth-serving behavioral health workforce.

Georgia’s rate of uninsured children has dropped from 11 percent during the depths of the recession to 7.6 percent in 2014. Despite this improvement, that means that 189,000 Georgia kids do not have access to needed health care and their families are without the financial protection that comes with coverage. In order to address this need, people who regularly work with children need to be aware of the importance of health coverage to children, and have the resources they need to connect kids and families with coverage quickly and easily.

That is why GHF partnered with the Georgia Departments of Education and Public Health to conduct a webinar called “Covering Kids.” The webinar was created for school nurses because they are such important sources of health information for families and students. During the webinar, Laura Colbert, Director of Outreach and Partnerships, reviewed the short and long term benefits of health care coverage for kids, which include academic and economic benefits on top of improved health outcomes. She also discussed trends and current statistics on children’s coverage in Georgia, and highlighted the pathways to coverage for kids which vary based on family income. Most importantly, she identified valuable community resources so that school nurses across the state can connect families and children with local assistance and information to help get them enrolled. This webinar is available to view on the School Nurse Exchange, and nurses who complete the webinar and an evaluation can receive CEU credits.

For more information about children’s health care coverage, check out these resources:

• GHF’s Children’s Health Coverage page
• Georgetown University, Center for Children and Families
• Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count data center, including an estimation of the number of uninsured children in every Georgia county 

We  know that closing Georgia’s coverage gap would help adults who are uninsured. But how does it affect families and children in our state? GHF and Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families have teamed up to bring you new research to answer that question. Key findings include:

 

• Nearly three-in-ten Georgians potentially eligible for coverage should Georgia choose to close the coverage gap are parents with dependent children residing in their home.

 

• Of those parents that could benefit from expanded Medicaid eligibility, nearly two-thirds (57 percent) are employed. Nearly half of all uninsured parents (46 percent) work in restaurants, retail, or professional service occupations.

Children enrolled in Medicaid are more likely to receive well-child care and are significantly less likely to have unmet or delayed needs for medical care, dental care, and prescription drug use due to cost.

 

The Taxotere Lawsuit served as a perfect example to prepare everyone involved, read the full report here.

 

 

 

Over the past 50 years, Medicaid has ensured that our family members, friends, and neighbors have the quality health care they need. Be it our seniors accessing long term care services, kids seeing a doctor, or people with disabilities living independently, millions of people are better off because of this critical program. Medicaid has also shown itself to be an effective and cost-efficient program. Administrative costs are substantially lower than private insurance and because people using Medicaid have access to preventive services, small issues can be addressed before they end up as big, costly illnesses. Children in particular benefit from Medicaid. Studies show that kids with coverage show up at school ready to learn, are more likely to graduate from college, and end up with more earning potential as adults. In fact, more than 1 million Georgia children (about 35% of kids in our state) currently get their health care coverage through Medicaid. As we reflect on what Medicaid has meant for children and families here in Georgia, it has been nothing short of transformative. And while about 1.9 million Georgians overall benefit from the essential health care access that Medicaid provides, approximately 300,000 Georgians are still stuck in a coverage gap: they don’t qualify for Medicaid under its existing stringent standards, aren’t offered coverage at work, and earn too little to qualify for tax credits through the Health Insurance Marketplace. The majority of states have accepted federal funding to close this gap, but Georgia hasn’t yet taken that step. Closing this gap and extending Medicaid coverage to all low-income Georgians would be a powerful tool for improving the health of individuals and families throughout our state. At Georgians for a Healthy Future we are proud to advocate for the Medicaid program that has been proven to improve health and saves lives. For the millions of Americans, and many Georgians, whose quality of life has been improved because of Medicaid, we’re so happy to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the life-changing program.   More about Medicaid in Georgia!