Floyd County lawmakers eye healthcare debate
Local lawmakers are keeping a watchful eye on healthcare deliberations in Washington, D.C., as U.S. Senate GOP leaders try to negotiate enough support for their Better Care Reconciliation Act.
State Rep. Eddie Lumsden, R-Armuchee, said Wednesday that Georgia General Assembly members want to be prepared for any federal funding changes.
“Whatever happens in D.C. will affect us in the states, of course, but until they take some action we’re still in limbo,” he said.
Lumsden was named chairman of the House Human Relations and Aging Committee this month. He hasn’t been involved in that area of legislation before, but he said he’s arranged for a briefing today from Speaker David Ralston’s chief of staff, Spiro Amburn.
He also serves on the House Rural Development Council, which is holding hearings around the state. Access to healthcare is the focus of the next two sessions, set for July 19 in Thomasville and July 20 in Bainbridge.
“When you’re looking for ways to keep the population there and help attract business and industry to rural areas, the plight of rural hospitals is one of the things that play into it,” Lumsden said.
State Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome, said she’s hearing from a wide variety of constituents — including some who mistakenly think she’s in Washington, with a vote on the bill. Across the board, she said, is a desire to see the end of the mandate to buy insurance. But there are also a wide variety of fears.
Dempsey, who chairs the human resources budget subcommittee, was in Atlanta Wednesday to speak at the board meeting of Community Friendship, Inc., a nonprofit that serves adults living with mental illnesses.
“Particularly for those struggling with mental health, there’s real concern they may lose their benefits,” she said.
At a Medical Association of Georgia meeting where she was a panelist last week, she said providers such as physicians and hospitals were talking about the need for reimbursements to reflect the cost of care.
She said she told both groups, and others, to take time now to contact their federal lawmakers about their concerns.
“Legislation is a process,” Dempsey said. “I think there are ways to address the problems, to make it affordable, and by the time they’re ready to pass it we’ll know more about it than we did the last time.”
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was still pushing Wednesday to bring Republican opponents in line, but there was
little indication that would happen before Friday and the July 4 recess.
President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday that getting approval of a bill will be “very tough.” But he predicted that Republicans will at least “get very close” and may “get it over the line.”
Georgia House Majority Whip Christian Coomer, R-Cartersville, said the state is in a strong fiscal position to maintain its programs throughout the congressional negotiations.
“Some states are overextended, and if there was a policy shift in Washington to change the amount they’re getting month to month, they’d have to deal with it immediately,” Coomer said. “The only reason we’d have to have a special session is if there was some retroactive change in the bill they pass.”
Coomer said both the House and Senate have committees studying options and he feels confident they’ll be ready to react in January.
“Hopefully, Congress will pass something with enough advance notice so we can prepare to implement it,” he said.
Getting to ‘yes’
State Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, is on his chamber’s Health Care Reform Task Force, which has its next meeting scheduled for July 10 at Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton. He and Dempsey have both said they’re hoping congress allows states more control over their programs.
“We’re closer to the people,” Dempsey said. “I think we can do much better for our unique population than if we have blanket legislation for all.”
If Senate Republicans can forge a new version before the recess, that would allow the Congressional Budget Office to evaluate the changes while senators return to their states. Many are likely to encounter questions or protests about the highly unpopular GOP legislation that kicks millions off the insurance rolls.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said negotiators were struggling with how to resolve conflicts between the states that have expanded the Medicaid health program for the poor and disabled, and those that have not.
Thirty-one states plus Washington, D.C., accepted the Medicaid expansion offered under former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act while 19 states — including Georgia — did not. There are Republican senators representing states in each group.
McConnell can lose only two senators from his 52-member caucus and still pass the bill, with Vice President Mike Pence to cast a tiebreaking vote. Democrats are unanimously opposed.
But adjustments to placate conservatives, who want the legislation to be more stringent, only push away moderates who think its current limits — on Medicaid for example — are too strong.
In the folksy analysis of John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate GOP vote-counter: “Every time you get one bullfrog in the wheelbarrow, another one jumps out.”
The Senate plan would end the tax penalty the law imposes on people who don’t buy insurance, in effect erasing Obama’s so-called individual mandate, and on larger businesses that don’t offer coverage to workers. It would cut Medicaid, which provides health insurance to over 70 million poor and disabled people, by $772 billion through 2026 by capping its overall spending and phasing out Obama’s expansion of the program.
‘When you’re looking for ways to keep the population there and help attract business and industry to rural areas, the plight of rural hospitals is one of the things that play into it.’ Eddie Lumsden State Representative