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Caption With bills on election procedures taking up much political bandwidth in this year’s session of the General Assembly, health care didn’t occupy as big a spotlight as in previous sessions. Credit: Stephen Fowler/GPB
A proposal allowing “legal representatives” more access to patients during health emergencies was approved by the Georgia House on Monday after emotional testimony by several lawmakers, including House Speaker David Ralston.
The chamber’s passage of House Bill 290, along with a flurry of other measures, came during Crossover Day. That’s the deadline for a bill to gain passage by at least one chamber of the Legislature or lose its chance to become law this year. (Occasionally such a dead bill is revived by attaching its provisions to another bill that has already passed a chamber.)
Low-income children in Georgia are set to soon have an easier path to collecting Medicaid benefits under legislation that passed out of the General Assembly on Wednesday.
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Caption Rep. Barry Fleming, Chairman of the House Special Committee on Election Integrity, is one of many Republican lawmakers that voted to approve no-excuse absentee voting in 2005. Credit: Georgia House
A partisan divide over voting rights is nothing new for Georgia lawmakers: For years, Republicans have pushed changes they say would eliminate voter fraud while Democrats argue those measures amount to voter suppression that would disenfranchise minority voters.
That’s still true in 2021, as a raft of election bills work their way through the legislature that would drastically alter the state’s voting landscape. While many of the proposed changes are new, others resurrect arguments from the last major overhaul of Georgia’s absentee voting rules back in 2005 only with the roles reversed.
Health Care Access and Improvement
Elimination of $500,000 for start-up funding for FQHCs.
Addition of $500,000 in start-up grants for FQHCs in Jeff Davis and Marion counties.
Healthcare Facility Regulation
Addition of $7,454,466 to support strategic measures for stabilizing staffing in the nursing home program.
Medicaid - Aged, Blind, and Disabled
Reduction of $74,646,745 in State funds to reflect savings from the temporary FMAP increase through September 30, 2021.
Addition of $25,328,540 to provide a 10% rate increase for home and community-based service providers.
Addition of $11,932,550 to provide a 2% rate increase for skilled nursing centers.
Addition of $3,470,204 for skilled nursing centers to update the general and professional liability, property insurance, and property tax pass-through rate components to current costs.