Several health care bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate that address a wide variety of health care issues, including private insurance regulation, Georgia's Medicaid and PeachCare programs, public health and trauma care, and the state's role in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
Private Insurance Regulation
HB 47 is similar to legislation introduced in recent years to allow health insurance companies to sell health insurance products licensed in other states. This bill would allow Georgia insurers to offer policies they currently offer in other states, even if those policies do not cover services required under Georgia law. The bill passed the House on March 10 and now moves to the Senate.
SB 17 would create a Special Advisory Commission on Mandated Health Insurance Benefits, effective in 2012. The Commission would be charged with a variety of duties, including developing a system to assess the effect of mandated benefits taking into account the costs and impact of treatment and the cost savings to the health care system. This bill has passed the Senate and is assigned to the House Insurance Committee.
State Health Care Programs
HB 214 would create a new state Department of Public Health as a separate cabinet-level agency reporting directly to the governor. This bill implements a recommendation by a special commission created to help guide the long-term structure of the state's public health activities; it passed the House and is assigned to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
SB 63 would direct the Department of Community Health to conduct a pilot program to develop a new Medicaid smart card to be used to verify eligibility and identity at the point of service. The version of the bill passed out of committee no longer includes provisions in the original bill that the card contain biometrics data and that patients submit to, and providers perform, fingerprint scans in order to receive care. (The biometrics component is now optional.)
The current bill requires the agency to implement the program statewide after a successful pilot program, which is defined as a program that reduces expenditures by 5 percent.
A fiscal note on the original version of the bill, prepared by the Department of Audits and Accounts, estimated only a portion of the costs of the proposal. In particular, the costs of the new cards and other equipment was estimated to be $575,000 and $600,000, for a three or six month pilot program, respectively. These costs would total $23.2 million in the first year, with ongoing annual costs expected to be at least $3.2 million.
Additional costs for computer and information system upgrades could not be estimated; however, these costs could be significant.
The fiscal note was unable to forecast potential savings because of the difficulty in estimating what portion of existing fraud could be curtailed by this program as well as the potential for new types of fraud that can arise with new technologies.
The substitute version of the bill was favorably reported by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
SR 140 proposes a Constitutional Amendment to dedicate $10 from the current vehicle registration fee to a trauma trust fund, to be established by the Legislature. If passed, the amendment would be placed on the 2012 ballot for ratification. The resolution is assigned to the Senate Finance Committee.
Affordable Care Act
Several bills have been introduced that seek to prevent state agencies from, or limit the ways in which state agencies go about, implementing the Affordable Care Act.
SR 55 proposes a Constitutional Amendment to declare that no Georgian could be required to participate in any health care system, in an attempt to prevent the application of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act that require most Americans to obtain health insurance in 2014. Because federal statutes take precedent over state laws, it is unlikely this Amendment would enable Georgians to avoid the requirement to have health coverage. This resolution failed to pass the Senate.
SB 22 directs the State Insurance Commissioner to seek a federal waiver of Medical Loss Ratio provisions that require health insurance plans to spend a certain amount of the premiums collected on health care services as opposed to administrative or marketing expenses. This bill was not reported from the full Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
SB 20 and SB 25 seek to prevent agencies from implementing any portion of the law without approval from the legislature, while SB 23 would prevent agencies from proposing or adopting any administrative rules regarding the implementation or enforcement of the Affordable Care Act without legislative approval. All three bills have been assigned to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
