Legislative Update Week 6: Getting Down to the Business of Business

From Ben Ross, PharmD
President, GPhA Board of Directors
 
Welcome to our sixth weekly Legislative Update Newsletter of the 2025-2026 Georgia General Assembly Legislative Session.

We'll start once again with a look at key events this week: 

Monday, February 17 is President’s Day.
 
Legislative Day Eighteen starts the week back on Tuesday, February 18 with both chambers scheduled for floor sessions at 1pm.  Appropriations Sub-committees are continuing to work on the Big Budget, including the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health at 3pm.
 
House Health Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, February 19, Legislative Day Nineteen. On the agenda is HB 227 dealing with the Low THC patient registry. Expect more committees to be added on Thursday, February 20th and Friday, February 21st taking us through Legislative Day Twenty-One. This marks the halfway point in the session. 

 

State Health Benefit Plans & PBMs

HB 196, sponsored by Trey Kelley (R-Cedartown), received the committee treatment on Tuesday of last week, including substituting the bill with a different version. The original bill would have required pharmacists to be reimbursed at NADAC plus $10.64 + 4% in Georgia’s SHBP and all university plans. The 4% was removed from the substitute bill with the explanation from Rep. Kelley that co-sponsors of the bill are working with the Appropriations Committee on funding and a fiscal note. Fiscal notes are routine requests made of any bill which would impact the state budget, and such a report will come from the Office of Planning and Budget. HB 196 passed the committee with unanimous support, including several comments from Representatives on the committee about the importance of community pharmacies.  You can watch the video here.

On Thursday of last week, over in the Senate Health and Human Services committee, Sen. Blake Tillery (R -Vidalia) presented his bill, SB 91, targeting PBM reform. SB 91 would prohibit the Department of Community Health from contracting with a PBM that owns or has ownership interest in a retail pharmacy.  Senator Tillery referred to his bill as breaking up monopolized vertical integration, similar to the Baby Bells. (For those younger readers, AT&T was dismantled in the mid 1980s following an Antitrust lawsuit, the result of which broke up the monopoly into regional companies, colloquially known as Baby Bells. Now we have AT&T, Verizon and Sprint due to this antitrust lawsuit.) SB 91 passed out of the committee with only Sen. Bill Cowsert (R-Athens) voting against the bill. Cowsert voiced his concerns that this bill would mean no provider would be able to bid on the SHBP PBM service, which is up for contract renewal. Jonathan Marquess, GPhA’s VP of AIP, was on hand to give testimony but none was needed as the committee members were ready to vote. You can watch the video here. 

WORKS IN PROGRESS 

In that same House Health Committee hearing as HB 196, HB 227, sponsored by Rep. Robert Dickey (R - Musella), was heard in an initial hearing. HB 227 would change the name of the “Low-THC Patient Registry” to “Medical Cannabis Commission” and replace “Low-THC” with “Medical Cannabis” anywhere it appears in the code. It would remove access limitations requiring patients’ diagnosis to be severe or at end-of-life stages and simply leave it as diagnosis with the current sixteen conditions. Several members of the committee, including Rep. Kim Scholfield (D-Atlanta), had questions about adding additional conditions like Lupus to the code. Rep. Scholfield is a person living with Lupus. HB 227 is scheduled to be heard again in the House Health Committee this week. You can watch last week’s meeting here.

Over in the House Public and Community Health Committee, HB 291, Certification of Community Health Workers, also ran into committee concerns. HB 291, sponsored by Rep. Darlene Taylor (R- Thomasville), would create a Georgia Community Health Worker Certification Committee. That committee would be charged with developing a certification program that includes setting standards and core competencies, developing training programs, and creating a process to accept complaints. In addition, the Committee would handle disciplinary action against any Community Health Workers violating rules and standards. Kim Jones with NAMI Georgia and Natasha Taylor with Georgia Watch fielded many questions about the roles of Community Health Workers, funding for CHW and the status of CHW in Georgia. HB 291 will appear again in House Public and Community Health before moving forward. You can watch the video here.