Voices for Georgia's Children Newsletter

From the Inbox:

VOICES THIS WEEK: January 22, 2010

This week brought major new developments with implications for children's health at a national level and provided the first glimpses and explanations of the Governor's proposed amended FY 10 and FY 11 budgets.  This week's Legislative Update provides a brief outline of some of the things that Voices' staff has learned based on healthcare and budget discussions this week.

 

National Healthcare Reform

 

This past Tuesday, Scott Brown was elected as Senator for Massachusetts, resulting in the loss of a supermajority previously held by Democrats in the U.S. Senate.  As has been widely reported, this election has implications for national health reform. 

 

Prior to Tuesday's election, leaders from the Senate and the House of Representatives had been working to reconcile differences between bills passed in each respective chamber before sending a final bill to the White House to be signed into law.  Now that Senate Democrats have lost their supermajority, the bill is now subject to filibuster by Republican Senators, which could stall the bill from final passage.

 

Leaders in Congress are now weighing different approaches on how to proceed with health reform.  Options currently being discussed include:

• completing the process of reconciling the two bills and sending it to the President before Senator Brown in seated in Congress, though this may not be a feasible choice;
• securing House of Representatives passage of the Senate version of the bill into law; 
• using the budget reconciliation process to pass pieces of the overall health bill into legislation, which would only need a majority vote (51 votes in the Senate) to be passed into law.  According to the rules, "reconciliation" can only address portions of a bill that are directly tied to the national budget;
• returning to the negotiation table to try to attain bi-partisan support for the overall health bill; or
• taking a piece-by-piece approach to passing different components into law.

Voices will continue to keep you posted as things develop on Capitol Hill and will inform you on how prospective changes will affect the health of Georgia's children.

 

State Budget News

 

The Georgia General Assembly has been in recess this week, yet members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have been hard at work under the Gold Dome.  Advocates and legislators gathered for three days of budget hearings at which agency heads presented the first overview of the impact of the Governor's proposed FY 10 Amended and FY 11 budgets.

 

Governor Perdue and the heads of agencies serving children painted a sober picture of the challenges facing our State.  Over the past twelve months, state revenues have drastically declined and cuts of an additional $1.2 billion from the FY 10 budget have been recommended.  Moreover, in FY 2012, the state faces a $2.6 billion budget gap due to the loss of federal stimulus funds and other one-time funding sources, combined with expected growth.

 

The budget recommendations presented this week include cuts to programs and services that will affect children and their families within several agencies including the Department of Education, the Department of Human Services, Bright from the Start: the Department of Early Care and Learning, and the Department of Community Health. 

 

Some of these cuts include:

• Requiring that teachers take additional furlough days in FY 10;
• Cutting $800 million in the basic funding schools receive this year and in FY 2011;
• Reducing pre-adoption assistance contracts with organizations that assist DHS in recruiting and screening potential adoptive homes;
• Cutting $1.3 million in FY 10 for the Independent Living Program for youth aging out of foster care;
• Cutting $518,000 from family violence reduction programs in FY 10;
• Cutting food stamp eligibility worker positions;
• Reducing funding for Federally Qualified Health Centers;
• Cutting Medicaid provider rates;
• Cutting family planning services; and
• Eliminating resource coordinators who work with Georgia pre-K families.

In addition to making cuts, the legislature will have the opportunity to consider a proposal to generate new tax revenue. The Governor and Community Health Commissioner Rhonda Medows argue that this proposal is essential to ensure the continuance of Medicaid in Georgia. The proposal seeks to fill a $506.5 million anticipated state funding shortfall in the Medicaid program.  It would fill this shortfall by:

• Establishing a new hospital provider fee and managed care provider fee; and
• Removing an existing premium tax exemption for MCOs.

Throughout the 2010 legislative session, Voices for Georgia's Children will be carefully monitoring budget discussions.  We'll also issue Action Alerts to inform advocates about when and how to raise their voices on behalf of kids.

 

"VOICES TODAY"

For daily perspectives on what's happening under the Gold Dome and a range of issues pertaining to children in Georgia, visit or subscribe to "VOICES TODAY"

http://gavoicesblog.wordpress.com/

Posted via email from Jim Nichols