On May 11, President Fenves was back on Capitol Hill meeting with members of the Georgia congressional delegation. Below he is pictured with Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Congressman Rich McCormick (R-GA-6th). He also met with several congressional staffers that are Emory alums.

On May 10, OGCA brought a group of Woodruff and Emory scholars to Capitol Hill. The group met with two alum Members of Congress: Reps. Kathy Castor (D-FL) and Jeff Jackson (D-NC). The group also met alums working as congressional staffers, federal agency employees, and government relations strategists.

Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Health subcommittee met to markup legislation around scheduled DSH (Disproportionate Share Hospital) cuts, changes to the 304b program and establishing site neutral payments that would affect healthcare entities around the country. The OGCA team is continuing to push for a delay in the upcoming DSH cut and has expressed our major concerns with provisions that impact our ability to provide world class care for our patients. The legislative packet now moves to the full committee. 

A bipartisan majority of Georgia’s representatives and over 230 members of the House signed a letter calling for a delay in pending Medicaid DSH program cuts.  

On May 16, the Ways and Means Committee met to discuss health care price transparency. Committee members from both parties agreed there is a need for increased transparency in healthcare. While this hearing did not have a legislative focus, we do expect the committee to take up additional legislation in the coming months. The OGCA team continues to work with our Congressional delegation to lessen the impact of new legislation.  

Debt Limit Update 

The United States is rapidly approaching the end of our borrowing capability which will require Congress to raise the debt limit. While this process is normally contentious, the tension has reached very high levels between the House, Senate, and White House. It appears there may be some small agreement on a path forward as negotiations continue between Speaker McCarthy (R-CA) and President Biden. Getting a deal through the divided House and Senate will be very challenging and needs to happen in the next few weeks. The OGCA team is monitoring this closely and advocating against inclusions of provisions that could be harmful to Emory in the final package.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) released a temporary rule which went into effect May 11. The temporary rule included an extension of all COVID-19 PHE controlled substance prescribing flexibilities through November 11, 2023, which grants practitioners an additional six months to prescribe controlled substances via telemedicine without having to conduct an in-person medical evaluation of the patient. The rule also includes an additional one-year grace period through November 11, 2024, to patients and practitioners that established a telemedicine relationship on or before November 11, 2023. The full text is here: Federal Register :: Temporary Extension of COVID-19 Telemedicine Flexibilities for Prescription of Controlled Medications. The Georgia Composite Medical Board will meet this week to discuss, but for now will continue to recognize the federal authorization if practitioners meet the criteria set forth in the DEA policy. 

Governor Bill Signings and Budget Update 

Governor Brian Kemp signed 350 bills into law from the 2023 legislative session and vetoed 14 bills. The vetoed bills include one piece of legislation that would have required legislative approval for state universities to increase their tuition above 3%. The $32.4 billion FY24 budget was signed into law by Governor Kemp on May 5. The Governor vetoed nine-line items in the bill. The vetoes by Governor Kemp include items dealing with public universities and technical systems in Georgia. There were still increases to the Zell and HOPE private scholarships, even though it was less than what was originally made by the General Assembly and the Governor added specific instructions for the amounts. Additionally, the Governor also disregarded 134 allocations made in the budget from the General Assembly. We do not believe at this time that any of these unprecedented changes will have a major impact on Emory.

On March 16, President Fenves and his wife Carmel hosted a reception at Lullwater House to honor members of the Atlanta City Council and the Fulton County Commission.  

Pictured below from left to right are Fulton Commissioner Dana Barrett, President Fenves, Fulton Commissioners Bridget Thorne and Natalie Hall.

Discuss DeKalb 

On May 10, Kendra Price, Associate Director of Community Programs, interviewed Rep. Billy Mitchell (D-88) for the DeKalb Chamber’s Discuss DeKalb interview series. Watch it here.

The OGCA Team is pleased to announce that Carly Keller has joined the Federal Affairs Team. She will serve as the Manager of Federal Affairs and work closely with Jessica Davis, AVP of Federal Affairs. Please help us welcome Carly to Emory!