ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at incentivizing the production of medicine and medical devices in Georgia has been introduced in the state House of Representatives on behalf of Gov. Brian Kemp.
House Bill 304 would offer manufacturers of medical equipment or supplies or the makers of pharmaceuticals a tax credit of $1,250 for every job they create.
The legislation is modeled after a bill the General Assembly passed last year providing a tax credit to the manufacturers of personal protective equipment (PPE), including companies that did not traditionally manufacture PPE but began doing so in response to COVID-19.
“One of the lessons we learned early on in the pandemic is that we cannot waste time in bidding wars with others for life-saving supplies,” Kemp said Friday.
“Last session, we incentivized the production of PPE in the Peach State to alleviate that problem, build up our stockpile, and make it easier to stay in business in the era of COVID-19. HB 304 is a natural next step to that program.”
The legislation’s chief sponsor is Rep. Jodi Lott, R-Evans, one of the governor’s floor leaders in the House. Cosponsors include House Republican Caucus Chairman Matt Hatchett of Dublin and Reps. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta; Ron Stephens, R-Savannah; Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe; and Patty Bentley, D-Butler.
A Georgia developer is proposing a casino resort on Lake Hartwell.
ATLANTA – Supporters of legalizing casino gambling in Georgia have failed to make headway in the General Assembly year after year for the last decade amid intense opposition from religious conservatives.
But this year’s push features a different wrinkle. A Georgia developer who helped build The Battery, a mixed-use complex in Cobb County that includes the Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park, recently released renderings of three proposed casino resorts around the state, injecting tangible details into an issue that has been debated more often in broad generalities.
“It gives a hometown flavor to have somebody in Georgia who would be a frontline player,” said state Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, co-sponsor of a constitutional amendment to legalize casinos in Georgia introduced in the state House of Representatives late last month.
Smyre’s hometown is the site of one of the casinos proposed by Rick Lackey, founder of Atlanta-based City Commercial Real Estate. It would be built along the Chattahoochee River.
Lackey also is eyeing sites along Interstate 85 in Lavonia near the South Carolina line and along I-95 in Midway south of Savannah. Besides casinos, the resorts would include luxury hotels, entertainment venues and retail shopping.
Siting casinos along Georgia’s north-south interstate highways is key to attracting tourists, Lackey said.
“There are people who drive through Georgia on I-75, I-85 or I-95 on their way to Florida,” he said. “At some point, they’re going to stop and get gas, a Chick-fil-A sandwich and go to the bathroom. We don’t have anywhere for them to stop and stay.”
A casino resort in Columbus would be located along the Chattahoochee River.
House Resolution 30 calls for a statewide referendum asking voters to authorize a “limited number” of casino resorts. If two-thirds of the state House and Senate vote for the constitutional change, it would land on the statewide ballot in November of next year.
While previous efforts to get casino gambling through the legislature have fizzled, Lackey said Georgia’s economic plight amid the coronavirus pandemic makes this year different. Casinos offer tens of thousands of jobs – both temporary construction and permanent – and hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment, he said.
“In the past, Georgia had very low unemployment and very high tax revenues,” Lackey said. “Now, we don’t. We have a need for jobs and increasing tax revenues.”
Under House Resolution 30, a portion of the proceeds from casinos would go toward the HOPE Scholarship and other tuition and grant programs at both public and private colleges and universities as well as Technical College System of Georgia campuses.
While the Georgia Lottery Corp. just reported record profits for the last six months of 2020, lottery ticket sales are failing to keep pace with the demand for scholarships, which has opened up a $300 million hole in HOPE funding, said Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, the resolution’s chief sponsor.
For Stephens and other supporters, the need to prop up the HOPE program provides a powerful argument for legalizing casinos.
Stephens said another advantage to the legislation is that casinos would not be able to set up shop where they’re not wanted. If voters statewide approve the constitutional amendment, a second local vote would be required to build a casino in a city or county, the same requirement the General Assembly imposed on Sunday sales of alcohol 10 years ago.
“Citizens are going to have to ask for it before it’s even considered,” Stephens said.
Supporters of legalized gambling have gotten off to a head start in selling Lavonia, Columbus and Midway on casinos. City councils in all three communities have endorsed putting resort casinos in their midst.
A casino resort on the Georgia coast would be built along I-95 in Midway.
In Lavonia, Lackey’s company has a 500-acre site along Lake Hartwell under a lease agreement. About 8.6 million people live within a two-hour drive, and 37.6 million can get there within five hours.
“It would be a perfect place,” said state Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, another cosponsor of House Resolution 30.
Metro-Atlanta’s six million residents enjoy easy access to Columbus via interstates 20 and 185, and the city lies along a popular route to the Gulf Coast beaches.
The planned casino site in Midway is adjacent to and just east of I-95. Up to five million people live within a two-hour drive.
“It’s basically suburban Savannah,” Lackey said.
The House has yet to hold a hearing on House Resolution 30.
Powell said the casino measure should be combined with legislative proposals to legalize sports betting and pari-mutuel betting on horse racing into one giant constitutional amendment. As it stands now, a sports betting bill before the House is in the form of a statute rather than a constitutional change.
There’s also Gov. Brian Kemp to consider. The governor is “not a big fan” of legalizing gambling in Georgia and could veto anything that comes out of the General Assembly as a standalone bill.
Constitutional amendments, however, bypass the governor and go directly to the voters.
Polls have shown strong support among the public for legalized gambling.
“They’re ready to go,” Stephens said.
“For too long, we have allowed this to linger,” Smyre added. “It’s time to fish or cut bait.”
A bill pushing back the deadline when Georgia voters can request absentee ballots before elections has cleared a state House committee, marking the first of many voting-focused bills to face legislative debate after the 2020 election cycle.
Sponsored by state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, the bill would change the deadline for voters to request absentee ballots from the last Friday before an election to the second-to-last Friday. Counties also would not be able to send voters applications for mail-in ballots during the last week of early voting.
The bill passed on a party-line vote Thursday out of the House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which Fleming chairs. It now heads to the House Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full House.
Fleming said his bill would ease pressure on county elections officials handling early voting and Election Day preparations on top of processing absentee-ballot applications. Voters would also have peace of mind that their ballots arrived in the mail on time to be processed before the polls close.
“We all know you have to have a deadline whereby you cannot send out absentee ballots,” Fleming said. “You need to push that back to a reasonable amount of time where not only can it be processed and sent to the voter, but also time to be sent back in.”
The bill’s opponents said it had the potential to curb absentee voting in the state and potentially disenfranchise Georgians, particularly Democratic voters who gravitated to absentee ballots amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several Democratic lawmakers on the committee argued the bill could spur longer lines at polling places and harm voters who requested absentee ballots weeks in advance but still had not received them in the mail by the second-to-last Friday deadline.
“We’re going back to the possibility of increasing lines,” said Rep. Rhonda Burnough, D-Riverdale. “If they can’t request an absentee ballot, that means that on the last week of advance voting we’ll probably have longer lines.”
Fleming’s bill is the first of more than a dozen to start facing committee votes early in the 2021 legislative session as Republican lawmakers eye changes to absentee voting and voter ID laws after Democrats gained major statewide victories during the last election cycle.
So far, bills have been filed boosting identification requirements for absentee voting, ending Georgians’ ability to vote by mail for any reason and outlawing mail-in ballot drop boxes.
Democrats are framing those bills as attempts at voter suppression, accusing Republicans of changing the rules of the game to slow Georgia Democrats’ recent elections momentum. Democrats have introduced bills allowing voters to register on Election Day and restoring voting rights for felons.
Joining Fleming as sponsors on the bill are House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton; Rep. Buddy DeLoach, R-Townsend; Rep. Rick Williams, R-Milledgeville; House Regulated Industries Committee Chairman Alan Powell, R-Hartwell; and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire.
U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock (right) and Jon Ossoff (left) won election to Georgia’s Senate seats on Jan. 5, 2021. They are pictured here on the campaign trail in late 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Newly seated U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia unveiled legislation Friday to give states that skipped out on early Medicaid expansion equal federal cost-sharing coverage if they join later.
The bill, called the “States Achieve Medicaid Expansion (SAME)” Act, aims to quell concerns over possible future changes to the federal-state payment arrangement for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has been a stumbling block for many states opposed to full coverage expansion.
Its leader sponsors are Warnock and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. Georgia’s U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, who teamed with Warnock in the 2020 elections to flip both of the state’s Senate seats, is also joined on the bill.
Currently, the federal government pays 100% of the costs for the first three years for states that provide Medicaid to residents with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, the definition of full coverage. Georgia is set to partially expand coverage this year but remains among about a dozen states that have declined full expansion.
Warnock, a Democrat who is Georgia’s first Black senator and remains senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, campaigned on a platform to expand Medicaid, institute a national $15-an-hour minimum wage and bolster voting rights. He called his bill a push to blanket all Americans with health-insurance coverage.
“Health care is a human right, and for too long, too many Georgians have been denied access to affordable health care through Medicaid,” he said. “I’ve long believed that expanding Medicaid in Georgia is an important step toward making affordable health care for all a reality.”
Medicaid enrollment has spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic that began last March. In Georgia, Medicaid rolls increased by 338,000 between March and December 2020, raising the total number of children, adult and family recipients to roughly 2,104,000, according to state Department of Community Health (DCH) data.
Opponents have warned covering thousands more people could bust Georgia’s budget for Medicaid, even with the extra federal spending. Currently, the federal government pays about two-thirds of the more-than $10 billion Georgia spends on Medicaid each year.
Critics also worry policy changes now could saddle Georgia with costly terms for jumping on the full-expansion train late in the ballgame, years after other states joined the Obama-era health-care program.
“I don’t know if the federal government will ever return to a period of budget austerity,” Chris Denson, policy and research director for the nonprofit Georgia Public Policy Foundation (GPPF), said last week. “But there’s always a chance that the feds will drop that matching rate.”
Medicaid coverage is now available for Georgia adults with incomes about 35% below the federal poverty line, as well as children in households making up to 138% above the poverty line and low-income senior, blind and disabled adults.
Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, gained federal approval last October from the Trump administration for a partial Medicaid expansion, covering adults earning up to 100% of the poverty level. That would cover about 50,000 Georgians, according to state estimates.
Kemp’s plan also requires Georgia Medicaid recipients to work, attend school or volunteer at least 80 hours each month – a controversial provision critics argue strips deserving low-income Georgians and families of a safety net.
Warnock’s bill leveling Medicaid cost-sharing percentages stands a good chance to win approval in Congress, thanks to his and Democratic co-campaigner Ossoff’s wins in last month’s runoff elections.
Ossoff, who is Georgia’s first Jewish senator and currently the chamber’s youngest member, called his colleague’s bill both a moral document and good incentive for states like Georgia that have not expanded Medicaid.
“This bill would ensure Georgia gets the same funding as other states that expanded Medicaid years ago – and create even more incentive for our state government to do what should have been done a decade ago and expand Medicaid for Georgia families,” Ossoff said.
Both of Georgia’s new senators have been busy since taking office on Jan. 20. They have called for showering Georgians with more dollars for COVID-19 pandemic relief, as well as bolstering voting rights even as Republican state lawmakers move to put new restrictions on absentee voting.
Hospitals and nursing homes would have to allow in-person family visits during public-health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic under a bill filed in the General Assembly.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, would prohibit Georgia hospitals and nursing homes from limiting patients’ ability to visit with family members in the event treatment or hospitalization lasts more than 24 hours – including during any “declared public health emergency.”
Family members approved by the facilities would be permitted to visit with ailing loved ones in-person for at least two hours daily, according to the bill.
Setzler said his legislation aims to relieve the despair families have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when dying loved ones often were reduced to spending their final moments with family via an electronic touchscreen.
“Watching your mother die in a four-inch screen on an iPhone is simply unacceptable,” Setzler said. “Every corner of this state has been devastated by the reality of not being able to visit sick or dying family members in times of great need.”
Hospital and assisted-living advocates say they’re reviewing Setzler’s bill, noting the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted tragedy for family members unable to see their dying loved ones but that federal rules on visitation have handcuffed them.
“I don’t think there’s anybody who’s more sympathetic and would like to be able to reunite families than our centers,” said Tony Marshall, president and CEO of the Georgia Health Care Association. “We just want to be sure that any efforts to allow visitation are certainly done in the best interests of the safety and protection of the residents.”
Currently, Georgia allows visitation at nursing homes and long-term care facilities based on levels of COVID-19 positivity rates in a given community, under federal guidelines.
State Rep. John LaHood, R-Valdosta, who owns a local assisted-living facility, said he is still reviewing the bill but does see “some potential conflicts” with federal regulations – though he also stresses families have been devastated by the inability to see loved ones stricken with COVID-19 and should have an avenue to seek better comfort.
“The whole situation is just gut-wrenching to watch and be a part of,” LaHood said. “It feels like a no-win situation.”
Setzler pointed out his bill would allow hospitals and nursing homes to impose “reasonable safety requirements” for visitation, though specific rules are not outlined in the bill. He said the bill aims to “give the provider control” over setting safety measures for how and where loved ones could be visited.
The bill also includes liability protections aimed at shielding Georgia hospitals and nursing homes from legal consequences for allowing visitors during public-health emergencies, mirroring legal guardrails businesses gained last August amid the pandemic, which House Republicans have proposed extending until June 14, 2022.
Setzler said he expects debate over his bill to center on what level of negligence hospitals and nursing homes would need to show for those liability protections to be waived in court. Lawmakers battled last year over whether to set the bar at “gross negligence” for bringing coronavirus-related suits against businesses and hospitals – a high legal hurdle but not impossible to meet, experts said.
COVID-19 measures in the 2021 legislation session now underway come as more than 1 million Georgians have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccines, an amount constrained by the short supply of vaccines currently being sent out by the federal government.
More than 763,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Georgia as of Thursday afternoon, with nearly 165,000 more reported positive antigen tests indicating likely positive results. The virus has killed 13,048 Georgians.
