As the countdown to Day 40 continues, the House and Senate Rules Committees have pressed the pause button on their meetings, which really cramps everyone's style. The House has yet to pass a Senate Bill or place one on its Rules calendar. Meanwhile, the Senate has passed several House bills, albeit the majority being local redistricting legislation. There were also tears in the well of the House today as two members, Representatives Ed Setzler (R-Acworth) and Wes Cantrell (R-Woodstock), gave their retirement speeches. More to come in this #GoldDomeReport.

In this Report:

• Floor Action

• Committee Reports

• What’s Next

Floor Action

The House considered the following measures on Friday.

• HR 467 - Georgia Department of Transportation; study potential costs and benefits of extending Interstate 185 and extending and expanding Georgia 300; urge - PASSED (129-0)

• HR 650 - House Study Committee on Literacy Instruction; create - PASSED (130-0)

The Senate did not have a Rules Calendar today.

Committee Reports

Senate Insurance Committee

The Senate Insurance Committee considered two bills Friday morning. Representative Lee Hawkins (R-Gainesville) brought forward HB 1276 to require the Department of Community Health (“DCH”) to post on its website statistical information about the Medicaid Plans, PeachCare, and the three state employee health plans relating to numbers of providers, hospital utilization, enrollment data, including common disease states, prescription drug spending, long-term care utilization and payments to providers, and per member per month cost figures.  The author proposed an amendment to delete any requirement that the cost of prescription drug rebates be included in the website reports.  The bill passed out of Committee, moving now to the Senate Rules Committee.

Secondly, the Committee conducted a hearing only to consider HB 867 authored by Representative. Mark Newton (R-Augusta).  The bill requires that drug rebates be used to calculate a consumer’s cost share of brand name drugs at the point-of-sale at a pharmacy.  This has the effect of lowering the consumer’s out-of-pocket cost because the consumer’s deductible or cost share is applied to the actual cost of the drug after the rebates have been granted to pharmacy benefit plans (“PBMs”) or insurers, rather than to the manufacturer’s list price of the drug. Rep. Newton brought a substitute to the bill that, among other changes, removed from the calculation any retrospective rebates applied later in a particular plan year.  The bill had already protected the DCH benefits from 340B drug rebate pricing. 

The Georgia Pharmacy Association, Georgia Independent Pharmacy Association, Medical Association of Georgia, Pharma, and two consumer groups supported the bill.

The Georgia Pharmacy Benefit Association, Georgia Association of Health Plans, and American Health Insurance Plans opposed it.

Senator Randy Robertson (R-Catula) vigorously questioned the bill's opponents and indicated his support.  There was a spirited discussion of whether the bill would cause health insurance premiums to go up because of the lower consumer prices, and the value of the rebates was lowered to the health plans and PBMs.  No vote was taken on the bill, but the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee likely will meet again before the Session ends.

What’s Next

The General Assembly will reconvene for Legislative Day 32 on Monday, March 21 at 10AM.

The House Rules Chairman Richard Smith (R-Columbus) announced the Committee would not meet until Wednesday, March 23, because of actions taken by the Senate.

The Senate Rules Committee did not meet on Friday to create a calendar for the next legislative day