Legislative update: Sine Die

Thank you for your continued readership and support during the 2021 legislative session! The GHF team is proud to deliver timely, accurate updates to you on health care happenings at the Capitol. We hope that they have helped you stay informed and connected. If you have enjoyed reading each week’s edition, please consider supporting our work with a donation today. Thank you very much!

In this week’s update:

• Our priorities: “Express lane” Medicaid, telehealth, and prior authorization
• Status update: Which bills continue to the Governor’s desk and which ones were left behind
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

Legislative update: Week 11

The GHF team prides itself on delivering timely and accurate updates to you 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:

• Changes to prior authorization bill
• Bills that still need final action
• Updates to Georgia’s FY22 budget
• Vaccine eligibility opens to all Georgians, ages 16+
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

2021 legislative session ends this week

Georgia’s 2021 legislative session is set to wrap up this week. The final two days of the session take place on today, March 29th and Wednesday, March 31st, also called “Sine Die”. Sine Die marks the 40th and final legislative day for the year and means “no future date set”.

Our next legislative update will include a summary of the more notable bills taken up this session. You can find a full list of health care related legislation at GHF’s legislative tracker.

Legislative update: Week 10

We are dismayed and saddened over the acts of racism and violence that took place in Atlanta last week. We stand in solidarity with Georgia’s Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in this difficult time. If you are in a position to help, we hope that you will donate, volunteer, or otherwise support our partner organizations who are focused on dealing with the aftermath of this tragedy. You can take action here:

• Sign on to a collective community statement in response to the violence
• Donate to support the victims and their families
• Support local organizations like the Center for Pan Asian Community Services, Inc. (CPACS), who are delivering mental health, translation, and other necessary services to the victims and their families, and the larger AAPI community.

In this week’s update:

• Action alerts: Tell your legislators to take action on hospital & nursing home visitation & patient rights & out of network patient protections!
• What happened last week: Tobacco & vaping, telehealth, vaccine administration, & more
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

Legislative update: Week 9

The GHF team prides itself on delivering timely and accurate updates to you 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: Tell your legislators to support Medicaid expansion & prior authorization!
• Our priorities: Express lane Medicaid & expanding telehealth services
• Crossover day recap
• Advocacy events this week: LGBT advocacy & League of Women Voters virtual legislative day
• President Biden signs COVID-19 relief including extra Medicaid expansion funding for Georgia
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

Legislative update: Week 8

The GHF team prides itself on delivering timely and accurate updates to you 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: Ask the House Rules Committee to prioritize mental health & substance use recovery today!
• Bills likely to receive a House or Senate vote today
• Approved last week: Emergency services, prior authorization, & the FY22 big budget
• Advocacy events this week: HIV decriminalization & Medicaid expansion advocacy day!
• U.S. Senate approves COVID-19 relief including extra Medicaid expansion funding for Georgia
• GHF’s got you covered this session!

Legislative Update: Week 6

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!

On July 9, 2020, Georgia’s Governor announced that his administration had revised his 1332 private insurance proposal. The new proposal consists of two parts:

1. A reinsurance program to lower premiums; and
2. The Georgia Access model—which would separate Georgia from healthcare.gov but would not replace it, instead directing consumers to insurers and web brokers to shop and enroll in coverage.

After a 15-day public comment period during which more than 600 comments were received from the public, Georgia’s Department of Community Health made no changes and submitted the proposal to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for their review on July 31.

CMS deemed the waiver application complete on August 17. The designation began a 30-day public comment period, allowing Georgians, health advocates, and any other interested party to weigh in on the revised proposal. Because of technical difficulties with the comment submission link, the comment period was extended another seven days to September 23, 2020.

More than 1800 individuals and organizations commented during this time, including GHF. You can read GHF’s full comment letter here.

On July 9, 2020, Georgia’s Governor announced that the state was re-opening the public comment period on his 1332 private insurance proposal. The proposal was considerably revised since it was last considered in February of this year. The new plan still consists of two parts:

1. A reinsurance program to lower premiums; and
2. The Georgia Access model—which would separate Georgia from healthcare.gov but would not replace it, instead directing consumers to insurers and web brokers to shop and enroll in coverage.

Other provisions of the previously proposed Georgia Access model were dropped (cap on financial assistance, new kinds of health plans, etc.).

The Governor’s announcement began a 15-day public comment period on the new proposal, allowing Georgians, health advocates, and other interested parties to weigh in. Along with more than 600 others, GHF submitted comments to communicating our deep concerns about the plan’s continued shortcomings. You can read GHF’s full comments here.

Today, Governor Kemp signed the Surprise Billing Consumer Protection Act into law! Georgians for a Healthy Future and our partners at Georgia Watch strongly supported this bipartisan bill to protect consumers from surprise out-of-network medical bills.

These exorbitant bills often burden patients with high amounts of medical debt. In fact, over half of debt collection actions contain medical debts, leading to bankruptcy for many consumers. Take George C. of Lilburn, for instance, who had his right foot amputated at an in-network hospital. Even after obtaining assurances from his insurer that the provider was in network, he still found himself stuck with costly medical bills. “I found out they used out-of-network providers when they assured me they would [not]. They would not dismiss the bills and I had no alternative but to file for bankruptcy,” said George, after receiving surprise medical bills totaling $60,000.

Atlanta, Georgia – Statement by Laura Colbert, Executive Director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, regarding today’s ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Texas v. U.S lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks to invalidate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Georgia is a plaintiff in the case.

“Today’s ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court declaring the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate unconstitutional and remanding the law back to District Court only serves to prolong Georgians’ uncertainty about their access to quality, affordable health care.

“More than 480,000 Georgians enrolled in health coverage through the ACA’s marketplace in 2019 and nine in 10 benefit from financial help to reduce their costs. Many, many more Georgians benefit from the standards and protections put in place by the ACA.

“As long as the court continues to entertain this legally dubious case, thousands of Georgians are at risk of losing their health coverage, protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and access to basic health services like mental health care and prescription drugs. Revoking the ACA’s protections and disentangling the law from Georgia’s health care system would only serve to sow chaos and confusion, to the detriment of Georgia families. These losses would disproportionately affect Georgians of color who already face inequitable barriers to care.

“The support of this lawsuit by Georgia Governor Kemp and Attorney General Carr is incongruent with their respective statements about increasing access to care and improving affordability for Georgia families and individuals. We urge Georgia leaders to re-consider their support of this case.

“It is important for Georgia consumers to know that this does not change the coverage they have today or their 2020 insurance plans. Georgians should maintain their health coverage and seek help at healthcare.gov if a life change results in a loss of their current coverage.”

For more information about Georgia consumers and Georgia’s ACA marketplace: Getting Georgia Covered: What we can learn from the 6th open enrollment period

About GHF:

With a mission to build and mobilize a unified voice, vision, and leadership to achieve a healthy future for all Georgians, Georgians for a Healthy Future provides a strong voice for Georgia consumers and communities on the health care issues and decisions that impact their lives. Georgians for a Healthy Future has a three-pronged approach which includes: 1) outreach, education, and engagement with consumers and communities; 2) coalition building and mobilization; and 3) public policy advocacy. For more information, visit www.healthyfuturega.org.