A proposal billed as the next step to improve access to behavioral health services in Georgia was easily approved by the state House on Thursday.
The bipartisan move would streamline data sharing between state agencies, examine the capacity of the state’s crisis beds and expand a loan-repayment program designed to expand the behavioral health workforce.
“We know that 80% of the families in this state have problems. They need a place to turn to. They need to know we’re here for them,” said Rep. Todd Jones, a South Forsyth Republican and co-sponsor of the bill.
Proponents removed a mental incompetence provision from the bill that angered conservative activists, though Jones said much of the excised section is already state law.
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, a Decatur Democrat, is the bill’s other co-sponsor. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder
Last year’s bill focused on increasing Enforce a federal law that requires health insurers to treat behavioral health on an equal footing with physical care. This time, lawmakers are trying to find a way to identify the gaps in Georgia’s workforce and understand the dynamics that mean some people cycle through the system and often end up on the streets.
“These familiar faces are absolutely critical to getting mental health and substance abuse under control in this state,” Jones said, his voice filling the House.
“I can’t give you exact numbers, but they’re probably 0.1% of this population, but they’re probably taking up 50% of this state’s resources,” he said. “So the question becomes, do we just let it go? Shall we kick it out into the street?”
For now, Jones argues that helping this population more meaningfully begins with a study examining how these individuals with serious mental illness interact with the state’s behavioral health systems and law enforcement.
The proposal would also look at ways to modernize the state’s licensing requirements in hopes of identifying and removing barriers to employment while lawmakers seek to shore up the workforce needed to care.
“(This law) is critical for us to drive the additional services and additional accountability that Georgia taxpayers expect of us when we provide services to families in crisis,” said Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, a Decatur -Democrat and the other co-sponsor of the bill.
The bill met little opposition on Thursday and passed by a vote of 163 to 3. Rep. Charlice Byrd, a Woodstock Republican who voted against, pushed back the repayment rule.
Last year’s bill created a program for students interested in a career in behavioral health, and the legislature proposes to build on that by offering a loan-repayment program to those who are already in the workforce.
Rep. Charlice Byrd, a Woodstock Republican, questioned a proposal to waive behavioral medicine credit. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder
Byrd argued that Georgia Republicans would call such a proposal socialism if proposed by someone like Vermont’s US Senator Bernie Sanders. “Yet we do this in the state of Georgia,” she said.
Supporters sharply disagreed. Jones countered that rather than a broad benefit, the proposal would apply only to workers serving underserved youth and in areas of the state most in need.
“Your birthright in this state — where you live and where you were born — shouldn’t determine whether or not you receive adequate health care,” Jones said. “And health care is physical and mental substance abuse. So we have to be able to attack them and attack them strategically.”
The bill now moves to the Senate, where activists last year tried to defeat Bill 2022.
The late Speaker of the House, David Ralston, who played a key role behind last year’s bill, died in November. Speaker of the House Jon Burns took up the issue and introduced this year’s proposal at a press conference last month and briefly waived a chamber rule that only one representative speaks at the well so that both Jones and Oliver can answer questions together.
“I can assure you Speaker David Ralston is smiling down on that body right now,” Burns said Thursday.
