Under the protection of House Bill 428.

Every Georgian who faces a challenge, the challenge of infertility will have access to IVF, which has made it possible.

To realize their dream of parenthood.

Speaker Jon Burns touts the passing of HB 428 a ensuring that Georgia families have access to IVF and the opportunity to become proud parents.

Good evening.

On day 24 of the Georgia legislative Session.

Welcome to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

More on the long day in the House with voters on a lot of major bills today, including IVF.

In a moment.

Also, two perspectives on a hotly debated bill to help Georgia deal with a shortage in anesthesiologists.

And what is the nation's largest legislative black caucus interested in accomplishing this session and beyond?

Two of the leaders joined the show.

Plus, the latest on a bill to terminate the social media accounts of anyone in Georgia younger than 14-years-old.

Now, let's get a rundown of the day at the Capitol.

From correspondent Sarah Kallis.

Donna.

An hours long debate over a familiar issue in the House and unity over one particular bill for families.

A busy day in the House as members took up nine bills.

House Bill 428, a much anticipated bill that would give Georgians the right to access IVF treatment.

For the bill's sponsor, the issue is personal.

A growing concern became apparent that we were having there was issues.

So we started to try IVF and we did that multiple times.

We did the hormone therapy that came with it.

We even actually we tried adoption at one point, and we came along all the way down to the end of that to the last two weeks of adopting and had the attorney, the contract, all that stuff that goes with it.

Um, the process that went with it and that fell apart two weeks before we were able to adopt.

So you can say that this experience for us has been a very emotional one.

It's been highs and lows.

It's been a very emotional experience throughout this time.

But I'm here to tell you today that we did it.

We did IVF one other time and it worked.

And now my wife is pregnant with a little girl and we're we're ecstatic about it.

Franklin's wife joined him in the chamber to support the bill.

HB 428 passed unanimously.

The House also voted on their version of a controversial bill that would ban transgender girls from girls sports and require changing rooms and bathrooms to be separated by sex assigned at birth.

Supporters of the bill said it ensures fairness.

House Bill 267 is a common sense bill that recognizes the biological differences between male and female.

Men generally have higher cardiovascular capacity, greater bone density, and more muscle mass.

These advantages are undeniable, allowing biological males to compete against biological females creates significant harm and undermines the intent and success of title nine.

There is genetic differences between boys and girls, and that's that's inalienable.

And it is not changeable.

You cannot change it.

No chemical nor no hormone.

No surgery is ever going to change your genetic makeup, ever.

There's been a lot of people that have talked about that.

I'm not going to go into detail about it, but I also talk about about progressive left in this conversation.

We always have about safe spaces.

You my daughter deserves a safe space.

She deserves it.

But Democrats oppose the bill and said female athletes face other pressing issues like sexual harassment.

Men telling girls and women that you all have helpfully diagnosed the problem for us, and now you're going to swoop in and fix it.

With all due respect, girls and women don't need men speaking for us.

We do that for ourselves.

Which brings me to this bill, which again, has nothing to do with the issues standing in the way of fairness for us in sports.

If it did, it would address real issues, not made up ones.

Yes, these are children.

I said children who are the subject of this legislation.

The objective being a law that would question their humanity, segregate them from their classmates and make them the object of ridicule at the direction of the state.

The bill passed 100 and 2-54 in a party line vote.

After a heated debate.

The Senate voted today on the second portion of Governor Brian Kemp's tort reform bills.

When SB 69 was presented on the floor.

The bill would put safeguards around the use of third party litigation funding or.

TPLF.

TPLF companies commonly bankroll plaintiffs to take their case to civil court in exchange for a portion, sometimes a large portion, of any award that may result.

This is a consumer protection measure, and it also combats the growing foreign influence in our own judiciary.

This bill in no way is aimed at removing the ability of plaintiffs to engage in this type of litigation financing.

It is purely ensuring that when plaintiffs, many of which are victims of wrongdoing, are not taken advantage of by bad actors who attempt to exploit the tragedy of others.

The bill would also prevent foreign actors who are increasingly behind many of the TPLF businesses from operating in Georgia.

One of the things that has brought this to our attention, and that has made this to be something of a very critical nature, is that it has been exposed that many of the third party litigation financiers are foreign adversaries to this country.

Communist China, Russia and others.

And you may think, other than the incredible returns that some of these investment investments produce, why would they be getting involved?

And the reason is it gives them a foothold into our civil justice system that could give them access to information that they otherwise wouldn't be able to have.

Think data, think technology, think things like that.

Unlike last week's more contentious Tort reform bill, SB 68, which was passed along party lines, SB 69 passed unanimously.

Another Kemp supported bill was also brought to the Senate today, but this time it was supported by Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp.

SB 42 would change the laws surrounding the human trafficking of minors, which can overlap with the offense of keeping a place of prostitution.

This overlapping sometimes allows traffickers to receive more lenient sentences because of loopholes in the law.

At least two courts in Georgia have indicated that the conduct prohibited by Georgia's human trafficking statute is substantially similar to the conduct prohibited by the offense of keeping a place of prostitution, pimping, and pandering in regard to minor victims.

This bill should clear that up.

The bill passed unanimously as well.

Tomorrow, join me under the Gold Dome for Legislative Day 25, where I'll bring you the latest legislative news in my Capitol report.

Donna.

Thank you.

Sarah.

The Journal of Medicine, Surgery and Public Health says Georgia is facing a shortage, a shortage of anesthesiologists that is complicating the ability of hospitals to meet the demand.

The number of those physicians practicing in Georgia has increased from 783 in 2000 to 1,147 in 2020.

When compared to the changes in the population during the same years.

The rate of anesthesiology physicians per 100,000 people has also increased slightly, from 9.6 in 2000 to 10.7 in 2020.

Because that growth is not sufficient for demand, there is legislation in the Georgia House to allow a certified registered anesthetist or Crna to order and administer anesthesia.

The House Regulated Industries Committee had a two day hearing on House Bill 251.

It is sponsored by Republican Representative Lauren McDonald of Cumming and strongly opposed by physician and Democratic Representative Michelle Owl of Johns Creek, who is an anesthesiologist.

I spoke to each of them earlier today.

I had Representative Al explain the difference between a physician, anesthesiologist, anesthesiologist and a Crna.

So a Crna is a certified registered nurse anesthetist.

And as a physician anesthesiologist, I work with many, many crnas as valuable experience.

Parts of our anesthesia care team.

Right now, what this bill proposes is to change the nature of supervisory practice under which Crna is currently work.

So currently in Georgia, Crnas can administer anesthesia to patients, right?

And they can administer anesthesia to patients even without a physician anesthesiologist physically present there.

Right.

However, how Georgia law is written is that they are working under the supervision of a physician, which usually in the case of if there is not a physician anesthesiologist, it means they're working under the supervision of a surgeon or interventionalist.

For example, someone doing a colonoscopy, a gastroenterologist, that type of thing.

It was brought before our committee last year, and and I was very intrigued by it because I am from rural Georgia.

I grew up in Commerce, Georgia.

And so after the meeting, I talked to the people that were representing the Crnas and and I said, you know, it did not make it across the finish line last year, but I was very interested in helping them this year.

And so they we worked during the off season learning more about what the role of the coordination that we wanted between doctors and crnas and, and we pushed forward.

Got it to committee.

What this bill aims to do is to carve out the physician supervision from that perioperative team model.

Right.

This is a dangerous bill in the following sense.

Physician led care teams are the gold standard of patient safety, right.

So the same way that I would never propose to write a bill that carves creates a very valuable part of our care team out of having responsibility for that patient.

I find it shocking, frankly, that anyone would float a bill that aims to carve physician supervision out of that care team.

In terms of the rural areas, give me some statistics.

Well.

What we're looking at, Don, is there are 27 rural hospitals in the state of Georgia without an anesthesiologist.

There are 80 counties without an anesthesiologist.

I grew up in Commerce, Georgia.

We had a small hospital.

As I was growing up.

It died on the vine.

It died, you know, because it just could not.

Doctors did not want to move to commerce.

We had our local internal medicine doctors, but to get those specialists, doctors that, you know, deal with obstetric obstetrics or minor surgeries, they just didn't want to move to commerce.

So this this bill would allow doctors to coordinate, surgeons to coordinate using a Crna in surgery, getting the using the DEA license of the doctor or of the hospital.

All all.

This bill also allowed hospitals to opt out the policy.

The hospital could say, we're not going to use this method of providing anesthesia.

But but but the bill also gave hospitals in rural Georgia the opportunity to provide it, to help hospitals be able to survive.

I've heard that argument before that it increases access to care.

And let me explain why that doesn't make sense.

For anesthesia services.

Okay.

Anesthesia is always a paired service.

And what that means is that we provide anesthesia care in service of a second type of medical care, which usually is a surgery or an intervention or a procedure.

Right.

We don't just do anesthesia on its own.

It's always a paired service, right?

So you could pump 2000 anesthesia providers into a rural health care system, but that doesn't increase access to care unless you also have that concomitant raise in having surgeons come and do surgery or gastroenterologists coming to do colonoscopies.

Right.

Um, so it's a faulty argument that preys on people not fully understanding the practice model of anesthesia.

Right?

Um, I will note again that currently under Georgia law, Crnas can practice independently of having a physician anesthesiologist there.

So that argument that, oh, there's not enough physician anesthesiologists in the rural areas.

That's why we need this bill.

Um, doesn't make any sense because at present, if the crnas want, they can already go to these rural areas and practice without a physician anesthesiologist.

However, what is currently in law is that when they go to these rural areas, they are practicing under the supervision of any physician, right?

This bill aims to carve that supervision out.

Right.

And I think it's it's really quite poor form to write into code, right into law that physicians should take less responsibility for their patients.

That's not what doctors want.

And that's just poor medicine.

You know, I want to get rural.

Georgia's got to to come up here and support us.

I mean, they've got to say, hey, we need you.

We need to build like this, these rural hospitals.

We had the Georgia Hospital Association supporting us, and we had Piedmont supporting us.

So Grady was supporting us.

So it was they had an appetite, but they too got to choose whether they were going to use this program.

But they supported having that option.

And that's what this bill did.

It gives the hospital this, you can call it the opt out.

If they wanted to use Crnas to provide this type of anesthesia.

And next year, what do you think you'll bring it back?

I would like to I want to work with it during the off season.

And and I'm still I still want to help rural Georgia.

I think that there is a shortage in healthcare workers in Georgia across the board.

Right.

And we're not just talking about perioperative services like anesthesia and surgery and intervention.

Right.

We're talking about primary care.

We're talking about ob gyn pediatrics.

We talk about this all down the line.

Right.

So those factors that lead both Crnas and physicians to not go practice in rural areas are really outside the scope of this bill.

Right?

So if we want to really get serious about drawing more medical professionals to served underserved areas in specific, we're going to need to look at the whole healthcare ecosystem.

Part of that is we're talking about now is the legal environment around the practice of medicine.

And part of it is the fact that Georgia has one of the highest uninsured rates in the nation, right.

And we see that oftentimes doctors in training or people who are choosing where they want to practice, choose not to practice in these types of states because it's very difficult to take care of patients who have a very high uninsurance rate.

Right?

It creates a poor payer mix.

It makes it hard for hospitals to stay open.

There are a lot of factors within these decisions for people to askew practice in rural areas.

That is far outside of the scope of this bill.

What do you want people who are listening to know more, people who are potential patients?

Well, I want them to know that all anesthesia providers are very valuable parts of that patient care team.

But that is the essential word that I want people to focus on that it is a team, right.

And the gold standard of patient care and patient safety is the physician led team model, so that patients can have access to the full complement of training.

If and when a case becomes an emergency.

Right.

We don't always know when we're starting a surgery.

If a case is going to be an emergency or urgent case or not, right?

Sometimes cases start out quite standard and then we get into trouble and we need that higher level of care, right?

I want every patient to have that availability of care, regardless of what kind of surgery they're having and regardless of where they live.

Now.

In the end.

HB 251 never made it out of committee, so it will not make it to the House floor for a vote.

But as you heard, representative McDonnell is looking to introduce it again in the future.

And I want to thank both.

Representative McDonald and Representative Al for talking with me today.

Well, coming up, a group dedicated to the health, education, justice and economic prosperity of black communities.

Two leaders of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus preview their plans for the coming weeks.

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.

Where does that sound mean, man?

That's what I love doing.

Good booty.

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 God.

Da da da dee da.

What are you.

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.

I'm something big is happening, so hurry up.

We're diving in.

What?

This is amazing.

Well, I'm excited now.

Pompeii is a battle against time.

Wide open.

Oh!

Oh.

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.

Why don't you?

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry.

One way that groups with similar interests seek to achieve policy goals in Georgia is through caucuses.

Tonight, we're going to focus on the priorities of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.

With 75 members.

It's the largest state black caucus in the nation.

And joining me are two of the officers.

First, GLBTQ chair, Democratic Senator Nikki Merritt of Grayson.

Her committees include Government oversight, Health and Human Services, and Urban Affairs.

And.

Vice chair, Democratic Representative Doreen Carter of Lithonia.

Her committees include Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, education and Small Business Development.

Welcome to both of you.

Thanks so much for being here.

You guys have been busy today.

You had a press conference.

It was busy.

Yes.

You had a press conference.

So let's start with that.

You had a press conference today to talk about your priorities.

Talk.

Talk about what those those priorities are.

Well, first, thank you, Donna, for having us on.

And the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus is really committed to our community.

And so our top priorities are health, housing.

Education, wealth, public safety and justice reform.

And so we laid out the chair.

Woman laid out the agenda today during a press conference highlighting legislation and priorities in these particular areas that we think are important and crucial to our community.

Yeah.

Talk a little bit about why those areas in particular.

Um, in almost every poll that I've seen and just hearing from our communities, that was the feedback we're, we're we're hearing.

Housing is almost number one.

Uh, health care came in at number two.

Uh, and just things about our economy in general came in, but we wanted to really focus on those two top issues as well as we do have one of our priorities about building wealth in the, in the black community.

And that can help with some of the the economic problems that we're seeing.

Yeah.

I know you had your Heritage Gala last week.

Yes.

Pretty pretty big deal.

Yes.

So talk a little bit about so you talked about tort reform there and and maternal mortality too, right.

Yes.

At the of the gala.

This it was really amazing.

Uh, we held it at the aquarium, and we had an opportunity to bring our members, our community leaders, our supporters together, uh, as an opportunity to celebrate.

And we, as we talk about our heritage and really talk about what we're doing for our future.

And so, yes, tort reform is a part of an issue that we will hope that we'll be able to address and make an impact on our community as it relates to our insurance policies, because right now, uh, we're having a lot of chatter on how the insurance companies and the attorneys are going to benefit, but we're not having a lot of conversations around how it's going to support our constituents.

Because, as you know, in Georgia, we are really seeing really high insurance rates.

And the people need relief.

So as we continue to debate and work through this language, we hope at the end of the day that really helps our constituents.

A lot of it is translating it to the people who are your constituents, right.

Make sure making sure they understand a lot of what goes on at the Capitol.

It's kind of tough to to wrap your mind around, right?

Right.

Or even those of us who are there every day.

Absolutely.

And Tort reform know one understands that term.

So I just told people, just remember, this is a big handout.

It's a big handout to corporations.

And at the end of the day, we should be putting, um, more.

We should be asking more of insurance companies because insurance companies are setting these rates.

So I need consumers to really understand.

I know I hear I'm hearing from my constituents like, hey, vote for the tort reform.

And I'm like, no, wait a minute here.

This is really a lot more to this than you think.

And at the end of the day, it is my job to have more consumer protection policies and make sure I'm protecting my communities.

Yeah, and I know you want to hear from them.

Yes.

I want to get to some other bills that you guys have individually and together.

But one bill that you have that's gained a lot of momentum is limiting social media.

Yes.

Anyone under 14-years-old, HB 165.

HB 165.

We're calling the banning on the the minors on social media bill, and it is getting a lot of traction.

And yes, it would ban altogether if you're under 14 to be on social media, if you're 14 and 15, you can be on it with parental consent.

But what this bill also does is hold social media companies accountable and creates an accountability system and makes the social media companies liable if they have those minors on without parental consent.

Wow.

So I know that a lot of parents are probably interested in this.

Yeah.

And what I'm what?

And my real reason behind it is what we're seeing at social media.

The social media companies have built this model to where it's very addictive.

So we're creating addiction number one, but it's also impacting their mental health, their creativity, their sense of play.

And at a very young age, you know, that's that's a critical age.

At 14, I think kids need to be outside playing and reading books.

I know 14 who I don't even think I want to go back through those that to that age.

You have a bill that has a personal, uh, feeling for you.

I mean, this on a personal note.

It deals with the heart.

It's House Bill 459.

The heart health for all act.

And so tell us about it.

And and why it's so personal for you?

Well, the purpose of this legislation is because we want more education and more information in disadvantaged communities, more minority communities, because we know that the number one cause of death in women and black women in particular is heart disease.

So studies have shown that the more that we know about the disease, the more that we can change our behavior.

So if we can have our public health administrators in the communities working with our schools, providing data and information that will help black and brown members of our society really understand what the disease is and how we can change our behavior, whether it's exercise or drinking water or food especially, is really what we eat.

And just understanding how different foods affect our bodies.

So we're hoping if we can move this piece of legislation and we get more information to the community and more information earlier, and it trickles down into the homes that we can begin to save more lives and talk less about how how many people have passed away.

And yes, it has affected me, and this is why it's so important.

Um, you know, my grandmother actually passed away, had a massive heart attack one Friday evening, and then my mother died in her sleep from heart complications.

And even though we had this history in our family, I never thought it would be me.

And yeah, we all.

Yeah, we all think that.

And, um, interestingly enough, uh, March of 2015, I actually had an attack on my heart.

And, um, the doctors were like, kind of surprised because my cholesterol wasn't.

Necessarily high and her blood pressure was a little elevated, but it wasn't what you would have expected.

And so, um, from that, I started learning more and more.

And then I shared with you, uh, that since being elected, I've actually had a stroke.

And so I've learned and then having that, that there's something in our life proprotein that the doctors are beginning to understand that that's an indicator of you could be predisposed to, to heart disease.

So there are studies that I participate in.

And so with knowing all of this, I do everything that I can to educate our community.

So since I've been elected, I've held the heart healthy lunch at the Capitol in the community every year on that first Friday in February and every year we've done it, someone said, thank you because they were having some issues, but they may not have gone to the doctor had they not been exposed to that information.

You're making a difference.

Yes.

It's just a it's a changing the way people look at things.

It is.

It is.

We'll we'll keep up with your bill on that.

So we're going to switch to you.

You have some, I.

Guess.

Bills that you're interested in.

And it has to do with surveillance.

Correct.

So I is new you know, I know we're hearing you know, everyone's using it, but there are also some could be some problems with A.I.

So A.I.

Is being used in two ways.

And I can condense it into two bills that I'm talking about.

One is wage surveillance.

So A.I.

And data is being used to pull like your demographics and where you live and charge you different prices for different services.

For instance, rideshare, depending on where you live or who that driver is, the driver can be the A.I.

Is saying is using is data to pull the driver.

That would take the lowest fare, but also charging the consumer a very high price.

And that price can change to according to where you live demographics.

So that's one way.

The other way A.I.

Is being used is by companies and government agencies to discriminate.

So we a is is not sophisticated enough to know the nuances of like human behavior.

So using A.I.

In a way to determine things like health care, to determine things like jobs, to make decisions about disability.

Companies are using the A.I.

Data and they're pulling it.

And A.I.

Is determining that.

And what this bill does is holds those companies liable because per our Constitution, you cannot discriminate based on race, color, sex, religion or any disability.

So companies need to be held accountable.

We can't sue A.I., but we can sue those companies.

And A.I.

Only knows what the programmers are telling it.

So if we have a bunch of information out there on the internet that is biased and we know we have a very biased and we have some discriminatory things in our society.

A.I.

Is pulling that information.

So you're actually allowing A.I.

To make decisions based on bad data.

Wow.

So a lot of scary things it.

Is that is scary.

Scary and scary.

On another level.

But I appreciate you both, um, doing what you're doing down at the Capitol to try to get that to go, you know, to to educate people about it and to try to protect us in some kind of way.

Yes.

Thank you both for coming in today.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

And that does it for Lawmakers tonight.

And we're off until Monday.

But tune in to Sarah Kallis for Lawmakers.

She has a Capitol report at the end of PBS NewsHour right before 7:00 P.M.

Tomorrow night.

In the meantime, have a good night.

My mini me is here.

Bye.

Have a good night.

Okay.

You can wave.

She didn't know she was going.

To be on.