Despite the constant attempts of this General Assembly to erase an entire people, I want you to know that trans people will not disappear.

They will not slink silently away so that you don't have to feel discomfort at their difference.

They will not hide in fear from those who are in power.

In fact, there will come a day when trans people and queer folks and formerly incarcerated folks and all the other folks that Republicans have decided are useless.

There will come a day.

There will come a day when they will all sit in seats of power at this table, fighting for the rights of all Georgians.

The Senate takes up another transgender bill, this one banning hormone therapy and puberty blockers for children, and garnered the same passion to opposition from Democrats.

As with prior bills, good evening and welcome to Lawmakers.

On Legislative Day 26.

I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

It might surprise some of you that emergency medical services, including ambulances, are not considered essential services in Georgia.

That means it's sometime difficult, sometimes difficult, for local municipalities to have the flexibility to ensure EMS availability in communities.

There's a bipartisan move to change that, and two of the lawmakers behind it joined the show.

Also, the U.S. Supreme Court could make a ruling this year that could change access to preventive services through the Affordable Care Act.

That means insurers would no longer take on the cost of things like mammograms and colon cancer screenings.

We'll hear from two senators who want Georgia to be ready if the High Court changes Obamacare.

But first, both chambers are scrambling to get as many bills as possible moving.

Here is the latest from our Capitol correspondent, Sarah Kallis.

Hi, Donna.

Today at the Capitol, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and U.S. Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler paid members a visit ahead of a packed day.

With only two legislative days remaining until Crossover Day.

House members voted on over 20 bills, including House Bill 89, which requires medical facilities to provide the Maternal Mortality Review Committee with psychiatric records for maternal deaths and set up perinatal care centers.

People and physicians and hospitals have been very reluctant to give us that information, and it is essential to knowing the cause and what happened to him, and seeing if their psychiatric disorder or what they were treating for was any cause.

The bill passed 100 68-7 and House Bill 358 received approval despite opposition from Democrats.

The bill expands the definition of military base to prohibit certain foreign entities from owning land nearby.

After a lunch break, the house gave final approval to the amended midyear budget.

It includes an unprecedented amount of money for storm relief and cleanup.

Working together, the House and the Senate built upon the governor's package by including an additional $18 million in the governor's emergency fund to help meet the state and local match of 25% of for the debris removal.

The House and Senate felt strongly about adding $185 million in additional relief for the farmers and timber producers, for a total and unprecedented appropriation of $285 million.

The amended budget also allocates funds for updates to Georgia's prison system, funding for hospitals and school safety grants.

The bill was transmitted immediately to the Senate.

The House also passed HB 399, which requires out-of-state landlords owning over 25 single family homes, to have an in-state broker to manage tenant complaints.

If you're trying to develop new housing stock, you are going to be competing with these entities who are going to raise the prices, take it away from your opportunity.

It's even going to affect the governor who is trying to create workforce housing across Georgia.

This is a big deal.

And an update on Speaker Burns, chief of staff, who was injured in a farm equipment accident earlier this session.

But today, our own beloved chief of staff, former member of this body, Terry England, stood up three times with no pain.

Banning gender dysphoria treatment was once again on the Senate's busy agenda today.

Senate Bill 30 would ban all hormone therapies and puberty blocking treatments for minors.

This bill is the same bill that we passed last year.

Senate Bill 30, and it outlaws puberty blockers for minors.

Specifically in gender dysphoria, where hospitals or physicians do this to separate sections, two different sets of penalties.

If you do.

That's basically what it does.

It outlaws puberty blockers for minors with gender dysphoria.

Democrats try to add an amendment to allow children currently going through the process to be able to continue treatments, but still rejected the bill.

I find it ironic that the party that often claims to stand for parents rights, the Republican Party, is insisting on telling parents that they cannot make these critical medical decisions for their own children.

Many of the same politicians who claim that they fight against government interference in health care options, now want to stand in the way of personal, familial, and medical conversations with other people's families, with other people's children.

The amendment failed, but the bill passed along party lines 34-19 SB 74 would amend a current book ban law on school and state run libraries sharing sexually explicit or harmful materials to children by clarifying a loophole that excluded librarians.

New law would punish librarians who knowingly disregard the law but protect those who make a good faith effort.

If you look carefully in lines 25 through 29, the affirmative defense guarantees the librarian.

And thanks to the Senator for his recommendations in committee, not only the librarian, but workers in the library who might be challenged.

They have the same affirmative defense if they make a good faith attempt to identify and remove from access, not remove the material from the library, but simply to remove it from access to minors.

Democrats say the bill is more about controlling ideas than protecting children.

Tell the hundreds and thousands of librarians and media techs in Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, who are watching this dismayed.

Tell them that they won't be charged.

But I bet you won't, because it's the threat of being charged that's going to make that librarian comply with the first demand that a parent provides or makes, regardless of how unreasonable that demand is.

The bill was passed 32-23 And finally the Senate finalized the amended 2024-25 budget sent over by the House, overwhelmingly passing it 55-1 Tomorrow, the House is expected to vote on a bill.

That would prevent intellectually disabled adults from being sentenced to death.

That's my Capitol report.

Donna.

Thank you.

Sarah.

Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.

The case could remove requirements for insurers to cover the full cost of preventive care.

A bipartisan bill, House Bill 262, is looking to preserve access to some health care services at no cost.

Actually, that Senate Bill 262, those services include cancer screenings, medication to reduce the risk of developing diseases such as aspirin or statins, heart disease and diabetes screenings, and mental health and substance disorder screenings.

The bill sponsor is Democratic Senator Sonya Halpern of Atlanta.

Among the many Republican sponsors is Senator Ben Watson of Savannah.

I spoke earlier today to both of them, beginning with Senator Watson, who is a family practice physician and internist.

I asked him why preventive care is so important.

It's really a quality issue because it's shown over the past 2-3 decades.

We've shown how if you drive quality, you drive price.

And what I mean by that is that about 25 years ago, we were not paying for mammograms.

We weren't paying for colonoscopy, just the routine things that we take for granted now.

There were studies done to shown that if we find polyps in colon, in colons that prevents colon cancers, if we find, you know, breast cancer early, you save lives.

So it's all about quality of patient care.

And that reduces mortality and morbidity.

So it saves the insurers money.

It saves Medicare money.

So Medicare actually led the way in starting to pay for mammograms starting to pay for flexible sigmoidoscopy and then colonoscopies now.

And there's so many other things that we do from a screening standpoint that are paid for and are used prospectively.

And that's the important part, is trying to prevent disease rather than waiting till you have the disease, where not only does it increase your risk of dying and having all the morbidities associated with that, but it saves the insurers money too.

How difficult is it to get patients to understand that?

Wow, I wish it were that easy.

You know, there's still pushback.

Many times when it comes to just doing plain mammograms, certainly colonoscopies.

We do have cologuard now, which is a DNA based test on on stool.

And that is a good screen.

But, you know, if that's positive, you still have to have a colonoscopy.

A lot of these things are not necessarily fun.

But, you know, dying from colon cancer is not a good way to die.

It's tough.

Breast cancer is tough that we all know about.

Tell me, what even made you interested in this?

Well, you know, we have, over the years, gotten so accustomed to being able to go to the doctor and get certain kinds of screenings without having to pay a co-pay.

And it came to my attention that the Supreme Court later this year is going to hear a case about this very provision of the ACA, that that casts its future existence into doubt.

And I thought to myself, well, wait a second.

Here in Georgia, where we already have access issues to health care, I want to make sure that Georgians are able to still be able to not have to have any cost sharing for a whole range of services, like cancer screenings, mammograms and colonoscopies, vision screenings for young people even falls for our elderly all fall under the kinds of services that you do not have to pay for a visit to your doctor for.

And we have become accustomed to them.

As we have over, over the last, you know, dozen years plus since the ACA has made this a requirement for both public and private health insurers.

We've gotten accustomed to this and and I and I want to make sure that we can stay accustomed to it.

And the thing about it is, the ACA situation is one of those things where you've got to even think forward.

You don't know if things are going to change at all.

You don't.

And I think because there is so much hesitation and we just don't know what's going to happen at the federal level on this issue, that is exactly the reason why it's important to go ahead and make something happen here at the state level.

And we would be joining many other states that have already passed similar pieces of legislation that will require insurers to still prohibits insurers from passing on any cost sharing to patients.

So we're not, you know, we're not leading the charge on this, but we would in fact, be part of quite a number of states and bills that are pushing this idea forward.

And even the Trump administration really is arguing for the continuation of no co-pay on preventive care services.

And for everyone from the infants all the way through.

All the way through.

This is this would affect our youngest to our oldest Georgians.

So what we're doing is we're reacting a little bit of what's been said in Washington, and there's still a lot of mixed signals that are coming out, but I think that everybody will err on the side of quality because we're driving quality when it comes to this.

And Medicare knows better than anyone that it saves them money when it comes to that.

That's actually an area of the budget that's been reducing over the past decade.

And it all is primary care driven by driving quality.

And it's not just having to do with mammograms and colonoscopies.

It has to do with doing the a1c's.

When it comes to diabetes, checking people's feet, making sure that they have good eye exams and that kind of thing.

So if you drive quality on multiple different segments, it's good care of the patients.

And guess what?

It saves Medicare money and saves insurers money.

So they are driving this issue.

And I think that's a good thing.

So I don't think you'll see anything that will be done from preventive anything.

I would I would expect that we would see improvement relating to that.

But having said that, Senator Halperin dropped this bill.

We'll see where it goes.

This kind of bill, these kinds of issues really are not partisan issues.

I'm really excited that this particular bill, I am joined by a number of Republicans who've also signed on and recognized the importance of Georgians being able to not let money be a barrier to their health care.

In this case.

You're feeling pretty good about it.

I am feeling optimistic, cautiously optimistic about it.

And I'm and I am hoping to get a hearing on the bill.

Yeah.

And you've got not you don't have a whole lot of time.

I don't have a whole lot of time before we get to Crossover Day.

But I think that it's an important enough issue to talk about, even if it doesn't make this deadline of Thursday.

I think it's an important enough issue that we really need to be talking about it, and not ignoring the fact that this could change.

The facts are, is that if you do preventive care, i.e.

the mammograms, colonoscopies, diabetic foot checks, eye checks and things like that, then you save lives and you save morbidities associated with those disease processes.

So it's ever important when it comes to taking care of patients.

That's so important.

But it also saves money for the government and for the insurers.

Well the bill is in the Insurance and Labor Committee, and it did not receive a hearing today in time for a vote by Crossover Day.

But the bill will remain active for the next session.

And I want to thank both Senator Halpern and Senator Watson for those interviews.

Well, coming up, a bipartisan push to make sure ambulances and those who work on them are considered essential service providers.

Two lawmakers join us who have a bill to ensure emergency medical services are available to more Georgians.

You're watching Lawmakers on GPB.

Georgia Farm Bureau, a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving Georgia agriculture.

Farm Bureau advocates for all Georgia farmers at the state Capitol during the session and year round.

Georgia Farm Bureau, the Voice of Georgia farmers.

It's good to have everyone back together.

Good news indeed.

Put your feet up a minute.

It's beautiful.

How does that sound to you, man?

It's what I love doing.

Cup of tea?

I was thinking more.

A double whiskey.

Harriet.

Oh.

Freshly baked biscuits.

Always.

Well, this is all proving rather cozy, isn't it?

I got my head out the sunroof.

Oh.

Oh, my la.

Da da da da.

I know.

Understanding the past gives a sense of the future.

Heart like a lion.

This is the first time that anyone has seen this in 2000 years.

Oh.

Oh!

Oh, something big is happening.

So hurry up.

We're driving in.

Oh.

This is amazing.

Well, I'm excited now.

Pompeii is a battle against time.

Wide open.

All.

David Mencer.

You think I'm joking?

But look at this.

It did really happen.

Don't let anybody tell you who you are.

Yeah.

Love this life.

History teaches us to honor the past.

We're jumping in with our eyes wide open.

When you look back, you're like, wow, that was pretty special.

This is something that's actually altering the course of history.

You're charged with keeping these stories alive.

I.

Bet you.

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry in Georgia.

Centers for Emergency Medical Services receive about 1 million calls each year.

The Georgia Department of Mental Health says E-m-s takes care of rapid response, initial treatment and safe transport of patients to hospitals.

EMS plays a really crucial role in the healthcare system, and they have a unique chance to make a positive difference in what happens to patients.

Now in the Georgia, here are some workforce numbers.

There are more than 27,500 EMS workers.

That is about 258 medics for every 100,000 people.

25% are female.

75% male.

And two people joining me want to ensure EMS is a designated essential service.

Democratic Representative Ruwa Romman of Duluth.

She serves on energy, utilities and telecommunication information and audits, and interstate cooperation committees.

And Republican Representative Gary Richardson of Evans in Columbia County, is vice chair of public and community health.

And is secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security.

Welcome to Lawmakers to both of you.

I appreciate this.

Well, cooperation on this bill, because you both had bills that mirrored each other, but yours has been kind of moved into his.

And so let's start with background on these bills to begin with.

And I want to start with you because you've you've come on to talk about this issue in the past.

Why did you become interested in the issue of emergency medical services and making them designated essential?

Yeah.

So this is sort of something I like to share with people, because it's important for the public to understand that a lot of these bills that we come up with is direct sort of responses from them.

My husband is an EMT, and we had been sitting with some of his coworkers who mentioned, oh yeah, we're not designated as essential.

And I was thinking, how is that possible?

Law enforcement is essential.

Fire is essential.

And so it was actually through them that I started to learn more about this.

And it was the first bill I ever worked on.

Um, as, as a lawmaker.

And I was really excited.

We actually got it all the way to the Senate, but then sadly ran out of time as it goes.

So, okay.

But you kept hope alive.

Oh, always.

And then you had somebody who had similar interests.

So tell me, what's your background and even interest in this?

Well, I served on the county commission in Columbia County for eight years, and I was vice chair of the Emergency Services Committee.

So when I got up here, I wasn't even aware, really and truly, that EMS was not an essential service.

I think if you ask 99.9% of the citizens in Georgia, if EMS was an essential service, they would say, absolutely.

It's essential.

So, um, I got a call from back home and saying, hey, uh, we we need to work on that.

We need to make sure that it's that we get that designation.

And we in Columbia County, uh, use a private company and and pay them a supplement for, for their services.

And so when they were going through, uh, the pandemic and the and then the Helene and they were having all this overtime and all this extra hours and all, they couldn't go and request a refund for some of the extra expenses for for payroll and all of that stuff because they weren't considered essential.

So they could apply for a loan.

But that that wasn't what they were looking for.

They had to be out there to serve the citizens during these times of need.

And, you know, for them to have to take a loan to meet that payroll, it just it didn't it didn't make sense or doesn't make sense.

So that's why we wanted to.

And you get to see it personally.

I mean, I can't imagine that people were going through the storm.

They were working hard and then yet they weren't being compensated.

And and I guess with your husband being involved, you've.

Seen so he's, you know, a part time EMT, full time lawyer, and this was just his way of being able to serve the community.

And a lot of times when we're talking about how many more calls EMS takes per day, as an example, what they are responding to, the kind of challenges they face in the field, the dangers they're exposed to.

It's just to me, it just didn't make any sense that they're not considered essential.

And to be clear, the bill is narrowly tailored, right?

It's meant to just reduce some of that red tape, make sure they qualify for some of that funding without increasing burdens on municipalities or counties.

And to be able to, you know, 16 other states have already done this, and Georgia would be hopefully the 17th if it finally passes this time around.

Okay.

So it's HB 154.

So lay it out for us exactly what it is.

Well, it just declares that EMS is essential service.

So what does that mean?

That it's an essential service in terms of the people involved.

What can they get out of it?

Maybe break that down a little bit.

They will be able to if they they can get grants, federal grants.

They can get, uh, get, you know, monies when they when they have to do this additional payroll and these additional services out, they're able to recoup some of that, that funding.

And I think a big thing in this bill is that it doesn't do anything with the zoning category.

That is that is a large topic, I think is is where, uh, the designated zones and who works, what zones.

And all this bill does nothing to interfere or address that.

So it's just about getting the service classified as essential.

And I know that that has been an issue in the past.

But before we go any further, I want to hear from one of the of a couple of Lawmakers who have EMS services in their background.

Republican Representative Beth Camp of Concord began working as a 911 operator at 17 years old, and she later became an emergency medical technician for a while.

And she talked to me last year about the job and what she witnessed.

There's fatalities.

Um, sometimes they're children.

Oftentimes they're violent.

Um.

It's it's just it's a lot.

And I'll be honest with you, um, I could shut my eyes and tell you all about things that happened almost 30 years ago, because they're still with me.

Yeah.

PTSD representative Dexter Sharper, he is a paramedic.

He also talked about the mental strain of what he's witnessed on the job, and that's part of it.

Also, if the you if they were to apply for a grant to help with PTSD, if they're not an essential service, they may have a harder time getting it.

Yeah.

It just requires more steps, more paperwork.

Um, you know, for them, it's sort of like you're saying, oh, and I know that's not what anybody is specifically saying, but in terms of paperwork, in terms of logistics, in terms of technicalities, you're saying prove to us that you are essential.

And, you know, it was you know, Chairwoman Camp is 100% right.

A lot of what she is sharing are things that, you know, my husband and his colleagues will share with you that these calls don't really leave them.

And you kind of think about them and you sort of a lot of times you're kind of left wondering too, because you never get to see a lot of these outcomes.

Yeah, they I think some of the TV shows get into them.

And I always think, well, how do they do what they do?

Anything you wanted to add?

Well, the these these people that work so hard in this, in this industry, in this business and they, they come up, they never know what they're going to face when they get a call, when they pull up in that car is laid over, they don't know what's inside as they have to go in and try and take care of those people as they're coming out of.

So it's.

I absolutely consider them essential.

And I just think it's only fair that they be classified what they are.

Okay.

The good news is tomorrow is a good day.

Tell me what's going to happen.

Yeah.

The hope is that it will be on the House floor from our understanding.

And, you know, fingers crossed.

And but then, you know, you got to continue it on to the Senate.

So that'll be the next big hurdle.

Okay.

Well, we'll keep up with this and we'll certainly be watching.

So people tune in for our Capitol report report tomorrow.

So let's talk about how the session has been so far with Crossover Day coming.

So your thoughts on how things have gone.

Anything in particular you're glad passed or would like to see passed before Thursday?

Yeah.

So for us, you know it's a it's a biennial meaning there's going to be two sessions for this for this term.

And the first one tends to be a little slower.

And then all of a sudden we all realize where we are in the session and everybody's scrambling to get their bills done.

So the days are definitely getting a lot longer.

But, you know, I'm really, really excited to be voting on bills related to housing.

House Bill 399 was passed out of the House today, which would require those who own more than 25 properties to have a direct contact, which is somebody who has sort of these rental properties in their neighborhood.

It's difficult because you don't have someone to reach out to, to talk to.

And on my end, you know, we're continuing to work on issues related to lowering people's utility rates.

I've been doing a lot of research on the Consumer Utility Council recently introduced a bill on that to see if we can bring that back, because it used to exist before the recession.

Um, and we're hoping to maybe see if there's a way to bring them back.

Yeah, we've talked about that one.

We'll keep an eye on that one.

You had a drone bill passed.

Talk about that.

I did.

Uh, I'm very excited about that.

We passed it through the house last week, which was my first bill.

And that was an exciting time.

And you got a little, little bit of teasing.

You get a tremendous amount of tease.

Your first bill.

It it is very nerve wracking to go through that.

But it was an exciting time.

And once, once, uh, the bill passes, everybody comes up and and congratulate congratulating you.

And it's just it's a very exciting time.

And the camaraderie for everybody, both sides of the aisle come up and just congratulate.

We had a couple today that had their first bills and it's it just means a lot.

And I guess that's the official stamp that you're, uh, part of the process and the team.

Part of the family.

Part of the family.

And so now, uh, we're trying to get that we've been assigned.

What does it do?

What it does is it it'll put a buffer around ticketed events.

So if you're at a concert or you're at another type of event, just ticketed, dislocated, it keeps a drone from coming in and disrupting privacy and a nuisance.

You know, I know you've been in some areas before and all of a sudden drones start going around and you're focusing more on the drone than what's going on around that.

You paid to go and see and and be a part of.

So, uh, hopefully we can get it across the finish line.

I'm excited about the next step, and we'll just see how that process goes.

Anything quickly you'd like to see before Thursday?

Just, uh.

Well, just getting through.

Okay.

I mean, the day was long and the bar is going to be long, and so we're just.

Hanging in there.

Okay, well, I want to thank you both for coming on the show today.

Thanks for keeping up with your bills.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah, we appreciate it.

You're welcome.

That does it for Lawmakers today.

We'll be back tomorrow for day 27.

And that's the last legislative day before Crossover Day on Thursday.

And as we bid you farewell, we want to continue celebrating this show's 55th anniversary.

We'd like to send you off with a look back at the day legendary singer Ray Charles performed at the Capitol on March 7, 1979.

Oh, that's really cool.

Oh, Georgia.

The whole.

Day through.

This old sweet song.

Keeps.

Georgia on my mind.

Ooh.

Girl, Georgia, is there.

Oh, whoa!

Georgia.

And its song