Georgia Legislative Update | January 31, 2022

Mental Health Reform

On Wednesday, January 26th, Speaker Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) and a large bipartisan group of state legislators gathered at the state capitol to announce House Bill 1013, the Mental Health Parity Act. HB 1013 results from recommendations from the Georgia Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission, a commission created during the 2019 Legislative Session with members appointed by Speaker Ralston and Governor Kemp.

Some of the major provisions seek to do the following:

• Requires insurers meet parity standards already set by federal law, but haven’t been typically followed in Georgia
  • Ensures that state healthcare entities treat mental health and substance use disorders with the same scope of treatment and extent as physical illnesses
  • Establish annual parity compliance reviews regarding mental health care parity by state plans and state entities with a focus on nonquantitative treatment limitations
  • Requires managed care plans submit reports with a comparative analysis  as required under Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, 42 U.S.C.136 Section 300gg-26(a)(8)(A)
  • Requires an annual data report from health care entities that ensures mental health parity
  • Establish a process to accept, evaluate, and respond to complaints about mental health parity violations
    • Create a tracking system for complaints
    • Establish an annual unified report by the administrator of the Georgia Data Analytic Center relating to complaints filed for suspected violations of mental health parity laws
• Define medical necessity for mental health services and treatments so Medicaid members can make appeals relating to services and treatments
• Establish cancelable loans for mental health and substance use professionals
• Establishment of a Behavioral Health Care Workforce Database by the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce
• Establish a three-year grant program for assisted outpatient treatment programs to serve as a first step toward full integration of assisted outpatient treatment into the routine activities of community service boards or private providers and probate courts across the state.
  • The grant program shall aim to provide three years of funding, technical support, and oversight to five grantees, each comprising a collaboration between a community service board or private provider, a probate court or courts with jurisdiction in the corresponding service area, including juvenile courts, and a sheriff’s office or offices with jurisdiction in the corresponding service area, which have demonstrated the ability with grant assistance to practice assisted outpatient treatment.
  • Established within the department an assisted outpatient treatment unit to provide supervision, coordination, and support to the assisted outpatient treatment grantees
  • There shall be established by the department an assisted outpatient treatment advisory council
• Authorize inpatient civil commitment for mental illness to aid a person at risk of significant psychiatric deterioration in the near future
• Authorize a police officer to transport a person in a mental health crisis to an evaluation facility without evidence of a criminal offense
  • Creates initiatives and a task force to help local communities keep people with serious mental illness out of county/municipal jails and detention facilities
    • Seeks to improve outcomes for individuals who have frequent contact with criminal justice, homeless, and behavioral health systems
  • Develops a network of co-response teams with police officers and mental health professionals around the state
  • Establishes a grant program for accountability courts to serve mental health and substance use disorder population
• To provide for methods to increase access to peer specialists in rural, underserved, and unserved communities
• Programs to improve mental health in the juvenile justice system
• To extend to sunset date for the Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission

In a rare move, the Speaker is the legislation’s sponsor. During the press conference he said, “There is no issue — and I want to be very clear — there is no issue this session more important to me than this issue.”

Besides the Speaker, the bill lists Minority Leader Rep. James Beverly (D-Macon) as a Co-Sponsor, indicating the broad bipartisan support for the legislation. Day to day, Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur) and Rep. Todd Jones (R-South Forsyth) will be shepherding the bill through the legislature. The bill will be assigned to the House Health and Human Services Committee chaired by Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta), who joined the gaggle to announce the bill and is a Co-Sponsor. Rep. Don Hogan (R-St. Simons), Chairman of the Information and Audits Committee is also a Co-Sponsor.

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Mayor Dickens Visits the State House/Buckhead Cityhood Update

Just weeks into his term, Mayor Andre Dickens addressed the State House. By the Speaker’s invitation, Mayor Dickens’ address expressed his desire to build a strong relationship with every state legislator. Notably, the Speaker invited Mayor Dickens to enter down the center aisle to mandated applause – an action normally reserved for celebrities and governors. The Speaker has publicly spoken of his appreciation of the mayor’s outreach efforts. The mayor has made outreach to the state government a high priority of his nascent administration as the city stares down the existential threat of the Buckhead cityhood movement.

As a setback for the Buckhead cityhood movement, polls this week showed that the tide continues to turn on the issue. Numbers have flipped since June with 51-percent of voters now against cityhood, up 7 percent, and only 40-percent supporting the movement, down 8 percent for polls last summer.  A large part of this turnaround is the generally favorable opinion Buckhead voters have toward Mayor Dickens as opposed to the overwhelming unfavorable rating of his predecessor.  Nevertheless, the Buckhead City proponents have boasted of continuing high fundraising numbers and strong support in some quarters of the General Assembly.  Therefore, this is an issue that will likely be hard fought until Sine Die.  

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Voting Legislation

Switching gears, last Monday provided our first glimpse at the kind of controversial legislation that can reach the floor during an election year. Senate Resolution 363 was introduced on January 10th and reached the Senate Floor in only fourteen days. Sponsored by President Pro Temp Butch Miller, Sen. Jeff Mullis, and a large number of Republican state senators, the resolution was a constitutional amendment to ban noncitizens from voting. Currently, noncitizens cannot vote in Georgia. 

Since the resolution was a constitutional amendment, it needed two-thirds of the Senate’s support and failed 33 to 14, five votes short. The bill was saved for reconsideration and Monday’s vote might have been a test run. Regardless, Republicans will most likely use the vote against vulnerable Democratic colleagues in a myriad of campaign ads and mailers. It also demonstrates that voting issues still have weight among the Republican caucus and could make a reappearance this session.

Last week, Senate Republicans also dropped their bill aimed at addressing issues surrounding Critical Race Theory in public school classrooms. The bill, introduced by Sen. Bo Hatchett,  Majority Leader Mike Dugan, and several prominent Republicans, would introduce a complaint system that could ultimately withhold 10 percent of school funding from certain school systems. In particular, the bill would outlaw teaching that a people are superior, racist, or responsible for actions by other in their race. Additionally, it would prohibit ideas that the nation or state or systemically racist.

The bill was assigned to the Senate Education and Youth Committee, chaired by Sen. Chuck Payne, another Co-Sponsor of the legislation. In his state of the state address, Governor Kemp indicated that he would be supportive of such legislation.

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Up Next

This coming week the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will continue to work on the 2022 Supplemental Budget and bills will continue to be filed.  Stay Tuned.