Georgia Association Of Hmos Inc

Programs: Sb 397, "ava's law" was pushed forward late in session by retiring senate insurance chairman tim golden and enjoyed the strong support of lt. Governor casey cagle. While this legislation did reflect several attempts at cost containment, such as age caps, annual coverage limits, market segment carve outs and state licensing of aba therapists, it was still a mandate and proponents assured gahp they would be back next year to expand the mandate. Leveraging strong small business community support from nfib, we were able to highlight georgia small business owners who might drop coverage for their employees as a result of rising premiums in the post-aca marketplace and share the impact of mandates to house leadership. Chairman smith remained committed to his decision not to move the bill forward this session, and instead he assigned the bill to a special house insurance subcommittee to study the bill over the summer. The subcommittee is comprised of: chairman smith, chairman meadows, rep. Darlene taylor, rep. Jason shaw, rep. Rahn mayo. The house faced significant pressure from the state senate in the final days of horse-trading on legislative priorities, but ultimately held the line, which is a huge win for increased flexibility and lower premiums for georgias small businesses. The final outcome was no aba therapy mandate was adopted during the 2014 session.

oral chemo drug parity act. As the result of a hard fought, hard won copay concession of $200 after laborious negotiations with the bill sponsor, rep. Lee hawkins, during the drafting stage of session, gahp members agreed the $200 copay maximum for a 28-prescription of the oral agent was workable. Hb 943 as adopted contains the highest oral chemo drug copay in the nation. The final version was a win for our association the bill was ultimately signed by the governor.

the aca non-compliance act, pushed forward by rep. Jason spencer, initially contained language of concern for both gahp members and the georgia department of insurance. This language sought to prohibit the doi from investigating and enforcing aca provisions, which could prevent regular, daily, informal dialogue gahp members enjoy today, as both the state regulator and carriers worth together to best serve georgians. The bill sponsor, rep. Spencer, was less than flexible when gahp raised concerns around limiting the actions of the state regulator, and potentially creating the need for a federal insurance commission to serve the unmet needs of georgians. While the larger concept of non-compliance was included as language attached to hb 943, it was reduced in scope and completely omitted the area of concern for gahp members. This concept would have been better addressed in a resolution than legislation, but a strong outcry from conservative grassroots groups led to the legislature adopting language that addresses three main areas: prohibition of public funds being used to promote medicaid expansion, prohibition of the establishment of a state-based exchange, and prohibiting any unit of the state, such as the university of georgia, from operating a navigator program. The non-compliance language was included in hb 943, without any reference to the investigating language, resulting in a win for our association.