Under pressure to do more, Senate panel approves bill to loosen some restrictions on medical facilities

A Senate panel added more changes that would loo

A proposal to ease Georgia’s health care business regulations passed out of a Senate committee Monday with more changes that would loosen rules designed to limit the number of medical services available in a community.

But the calls for full Medicaid expansion continue to follow the bill, which instead proposes to form a commission that would look at comprehensive health care coverage. The measure, backed by high-ranking House lawmakers, mostly focuses on the state’s certificate-of-need program.

“We’d rather see Medicaid expansion in force before we see CON reform to make sure that we have Medicaid expansion,” said Monty Veazey, who is the president and CEO of the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals.

Veazey said the proposed changes to regulations controlling health care providers in Georgia represents “a major, major public policy change.”

Under the revised version, it would still be easier to open or expand a psychiatric and substance abuse inpatient facility and a rural hospital if certain conditions are met. 

The bill would go further with scaling back the regulations. The new version would, for example, exempt freestanding birth centers from the certificate-of-need process. A woman who was blocked from opening a birth center in Augusta has been held up as an example for why the current system does not work. 

But the measure, which could get a Senate vote this week, is almost certainly destined for a conference committee where leaders from both chambers will hash out the details. The session ends March 28.

The lead House sponsor, Swainsboro Republican Rep. Butch Parrish, was at the committee meeting Monday when the new Senate version was unveiled but said he needed time to review it. 

Lawmakers face pressure to go further with scaling the decades-old certificate-of-need rules. 

“I think it’s time for us to take a real serious look at some changes and also recognize that this is something that probably shouldn’t be done all in one fell swoop,” said Sen. Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican who chairs the committee where the bill was handled. 

But legislators are also being pushed to fully expand Medicaid after high-level Republicans signaled a new openness to fully expanding the government health insurance program for low-income Georgians.

Georgia is one of 10 states that have not fully expanded Medicaid. Instead, the state partially expanded coverage for those who satisfy 80 hours of work, school or other qualifying activity each month to gain and keep coverage. But less than 3,000 people signed up in the first six months of the program.

“We are kicking the can down the road again on Medicaid expansion,” said Sen. David Lucas, a Macon Democrat. “We don’t need a study committee. We know what it does.”

Cowsert said that is a “conversation that is ongoing,” saying there have been talks about tying full expansion with potentially abolishing the certificate-of-need program.

But he said Georgia’s partial expansion program, Georgia Pathways to Coverage, has faced some “unavoidable setbacks.” And Gov. Brian Kemp sued the federal government last month for not giving Georgia more time to make the program work after delaying its implementation.  

“I know there’s litigation going on right now in that, and I do think we need to give that a chance,” Cowsert said to Lucas. “But I do think we ought to all be open-minded to what you’re bringing up.”

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