by Dave Williams | Jul 16, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia voters will be getting help from veterans on Election Day this year, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Tuesday.
Raffensperger’s office will partner with Vet the Vote, a new nationwide organization that recruits veterans and members of their families to serve as volunteer poll workers.
More than 135,000 veterans across the nation will be serving as poll workers this year, Dan Vallone, director of Vet the Vote, told reporters during a news conference at the Georgia Capitol.
“When people see veterans serving as poll workers, it reminds us this is a civic act,” he said.
“People trust veterans,” Raffensperger added.
In Georgia and elsewhere, veterans will be counted on to help fill a shortage of poll workers.
Raffensperger said youths as young as 15 can volunteer to serve.
“You can be in high school and be a poll worker,” he said.
Responding to last weekend’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Raffensperger added his voice to those calling for toning down the divisive political rhetoric that can lead to violence.
“As Americans, we need to unite … and handle our political disputes at the ballot box,” he said.
Raffensperger was due to repeat the announcement of the partnership with Vet the Vote at news conferences later Tuesday in Marietta and Dallas, and again on Wednesday in Newnan.
by Dave Williams | Jul 12, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A former president of the Georgia Pharmacy Association has been fired by a prominent health-care services company after criticizing Gov. Brian Kemp’s veto of legislation supporters said would help independent pharmacies out of a competitive disadvantage with pharmacy chains.
Joe Ed Holt of Valdosta, a clinical consultant pharmacist with PruittHealth, warned in a posting on his Facebook page in early May that the veto of Senate Bill 198 – which had cleared the General Assembly with only “one” no vote – could put some independent pharmacies out of business.
Holt told Capitol Beat the company contacted him within hours and asked him to take down the post because it jeopardized their relationship with the governor. He said he did so immediately but was fired the following day with no notice and no severance pay despite 17 years with the company.
“I was shocked,” Holt said. “It was my personal Facebook page. I didn’t mention anything about PruittHealth.”
Neil Pruitt Jr., the company’s chairman and CEO, and a longtime member of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
The bill would have required the State Health Benefit Plan (SHBP), which covers Georgia teachers and state employees, to reimburse independent pharmacies filling prescriptions at rates no less than the average reimbursement provided to chain pharmacies.
Holt said the current reimbursement model isn’t working for independent pharmacies.
“Out of every 10 prescriptions filled, they probably lose money on five,” he said. “It’s a battle to stay open.”
The impact pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which run large health plans around the country like the SHBP, have on prescription drug prices has caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The agency released a report this week showing increasing consolidation in the industry is allowing PBMs to amass big profits by inflating drug costs.
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Savannah, a pharmacist by trade, welcomed the report.
“Since day one in Congress, I’ve been calling on the FTC to investigate PBMs, which use deceptive and anti-competitive practices to line their own pockets while reducing patients’ access to affordable, quality health care,” Carter said.
“We are losing more than one pharmacy per day in this country, causing pharmacy deserts and taking the most accessible health-care professionals in America out of people’s communities.”
In his veto message, Kemp cited fiscal estimates showing that implementing Senate Bill 198 would cost the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) $11 million to $45 million per year, funds the General Assembly did not allocate.
Instead, the governor pointed to one-time funding in the fiscal 2025 state budget that took effect this month to provide independent pharmacists a dispensing fee of $3 per prescription. The budget also instructs the DCH to put existing funds toward an actuarial study of prescription reimbursements independent pharmacies receive from the SHBP.
“These budget items provide an appropriate, fiscally sound approach to supporting independent pharmacists this year while obtaining necessary information to aid the department in evaluating
current and future management of the state’s pharmacy plan and the General Assembly in examining PBM practices in future legislative sessions,” Kemp wrote.
Holt cited a study conducted several years ago that found pharmacies need to make at least $10.63 on every prescription they fill to cover overhead.
“Three dollars is a good effort, but it’s not nearly enough,” he said.
Holt said the pharmacy association will work to reintroduce the bill and convince Kemp to support it during next year’s legislative session.
“We’re going to keep pushing this,” he said. “That bill would have done a lot to level the playing field.”
by Dave Williams | Jul 12, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Former Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine was sentenced to three and a half years in prison Friday for conspiracy to commit health-care fraud in connection with unnecessary lab testing.
Oxendine, 62, pleaded guilty to the charge in federal court in March, admitting that his insurance consulting business ordered the tests from a lab company in Texas in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks, working with a co-conspirator, Dr. Jeffrey Gallups.
A Republican from Gwinnett County now living in Florida, Oxendine was elected insurance commissioner in 1994 and served four terms. He ran for governor in 2010 but finished fourth in the GOP primary.
“Oxendine abused his position as the Georgia insurance commissioner by undermining the integrity of the state’s health-care system,” said Ryan Buchanan, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
“This case demonstrates our office’s commitment to work with our law enforcement partners to hold individuals accountable who prioritize personal greed at the expense of the public’s trust.”
According to Buchanan and the information presented in federal court, Oxendine and Gallups submitted fraudulent insurance claims for medically unnecessary tests from Next Health, a lab in Texas. Physicians associated with Gallups’ ear, nose, and throat practice were pressured to order the tests.
The lab company agreed to pay Oxendine and Gallups a kickback of 50% of the net profit for eligible specimens Gallups’ practice submitted to the company.
Next Health submitted claims seeking more than $3 million from private health insurers, which paid Next Health more than $750,000. The company then paid $260,000 in kickbacks to Oxendine and Gallups.
When a compliance officer raised questions about the kickbacks, Oxendine told Gallups to lie and say the payments were loans. Oxendine then told Gallups to repeat the lie after Gallups was questioned by federal agents.
Oxendine also was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release after he completes the prison term. In addition, he was ordered to pay more than $760,000 in restitution and a $25,000 fine.
by Dave Williams | Jul 12, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rose last month compared to June of last year, but the state ended fiscal 2024 with lower tax revenues than the previous year.
The state brought in $3.03 billion in June, up 6.5% compared to the previous June, the Georgia Department of Revenue reported Friday.
But the total tax take for the fiscal year that ended June 30 of about $32.95 billion was down 0.5% compared to fiscal 2023.
However, that doesn’t account for the state not collecting sales taxes on gasoline and other motor fuels for more than half of the last fiscal year. When that is taken into account, net revenues for fiscal 2023 were down 3.4%.
In June, individual income tax receipts rose by 2.8% over the previous June, largely the result of a 39.6% decrease in refunds issued by the state Department of Revenue.
Net sales taxes were up slightly by 0.7% last month. Corporate income tax collections in June rose by 31.4% compared to the same month a year ago, also driven by a significant decrease in refunds, in this case 91.5%.
The decline in tax collections for the last fiscal year came as no surprise to Gov. Brian Kemp and leaders in the General Assembly, who had witnessed a steady slide in state tax revenues for months prior to the uptick in June. However, the state has plenty of cushion to weather that downturn in tax receipts in the form of a $16 billion budget surplus built up during the last several years.
by Dave Williams | Jul 12, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgians with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private health insurance would receive temporary federal subsidies under legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.
The Bridge to Medicaid Act would replace federal tax credits due to expire in 2026 with premium subsidies to help people with incomes between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty level buy health coverage in the private market. The subsidies would continue for three years to give policymakers in Georgia and other states that have not expanded Medicaid time to debate the issue.
“Health care is a human right,” Warnock said Thursday. “In the richest nation in the world, it’s a travesty that there are still hundreds of thousands of Georgians who don’t have access to the affordable health care they need due solely to the craven decisions of state politicians.”
Georgia’s Republican governors and the GOP-controlled General Assembly have opposed Medicaid expansion since a Democratic Congress passed the Affordable Care Act early in the last decade, citing the cost to taxpayers.
Gov. Brian Kemp steered a limited Medicaid expansion through the legislature that took effect a year ago this month offering coverage to those with incomes up to 100% of the poverty level. However, far fewer Georgians than anticipated have enrolled in the program.
Republicans have pledged to consider a more robust Medicaid expansion when a state commission created this year to examine how Georgia can improve health-care access begins holding hearings.
But Kemp remains adamant that a full expansion of Medicaid will not happen on his watch. Georgia is among 10 states that have yet to expand Medicaid coverage through the Affordable Care Act.
Four other Senate Democrats are co-sponsoring Warnock’s bill, including Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff.
