Georgia General Assembly Week In Review

January 30, 2015

Pardon Our Dust

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Week Five Update

Autism Coverage
The state senate has passed a bill making it mandatory for companies to cover autism therapy for children under 6. Senators passed the bill, 54-0 and believe that early intervention can lower later health costs. The bill would make the maximum coverage $35,000 and wouldn’t be mandatory for companies with less than 10 employees. This is the first bill voted on by senate this year, and is now headed to the House of Representatives for consideration. The bill looks to face opposition in the house as the speaker David Ralston mentioned that he would not support higher insurance costs for small business owners. Read more…

Governor Deal’s opinion on Transportation plan
Governor Deal said that the transportation plan is a “strong starting point.” The leaders in the House of Representatives have created a plan that will funnel $1 billion toward maintenance of roads and bridges in the state. The main strategy of raising this money would be combining sales and excise taxes on fuel into a 29.2 cent-per-gallon excise tax. The methods for raising this money will be by dedicating fuel taxes and creating a new $200 annual fee for alternative fuel vehicles such as electric cars in addition to a 1-cent sales tax increase. Read more…