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With the unanimous passage of House Bill 428, the House took a significant step in supporting Georgians and their growing families. This legislation would codify the right to in vitro fertilization (IVF) in our state’s law, reinforcing our commitment to making Georgia the best place to live, work and raise a family. Many couples face the heartbreaking challenge of infertility, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting that 19 percent of women experience this struggle. IVF has provided a safe and effective path to parenthood for many, and in 2021 alone, more than 2,300 children were born in Georgia through this medical intervention, and members of the House shared stories of their personal connections to this life-changing medical procedure. These testimonies underscored just how vital IVF is for families struggling with infertility.
Another significant bill that passed out of the House this week was House Bill 124, which would mandate that the State Health Benefit Plan (SHBP) provide health insurance coverage for children diagnosed with Pediatric Acute Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS) and Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infection (PANDAS). Under this bill, all SHBP policies renewed or issued on or after July 1, 2025, would be required to include coverage for the purposes of diagnosis, treatment, appropriate management or ongoing monitoring of a covered person’s disorder. Both PANS and PANDAS are rare diseases that have previously not been recognized under the SHBP as covered conditions, and this legislation would help ensure that affected families and patients have answers and receive the care they need. Moreover, this legislation would align Georgia with 29 other states that have adopted similar coverage mandates.
We also passed the following bills and resolutions during the seventh week of session:
- House Bill 14, which would designate corn bread as the official state bread of Georgia.
- House Bill 34, which would require the Office of the Secretary of State to institute a unified system for tracking the continuing education credits completed by licensees of the various boards under the Secretary of State’s purview.
- House Bill 78, which would allow the Firefighters Pension Fund to invest up to 20 percent of assets in alternative investments. HB 78 would also allow the Employees’ Retirement System (ERS) of Georgia to invest up to 10 percent of assets in alternative investments.
- House Bill 113, which would require the Georgia Technology Authority to maintain a list of concerned goods produced by a foreign company of concern or a foreign country of concern. State entities would be prohibited from purchasing concerned goods from a foreign company of concern, a foreign country of concern or a third-party vendor or reseller.
- House Bill 115, which would establish procedure and policy for discovery and subsequent removal of vessels abandoned or left unattended on public property or in public waters of this state.
- House Bill 134, which would amend state law relating to sales and use tax by eliminating language that excludes the local portion of sales and use tax from a 50 percent exemption on the sales price of a manufactured home that has been converted to real property.
- House Bill 143, which relates to water permits for agricultural use and would remove language from state law that requires permittees to have an acceptable type of water measuring device within one year of the updated effective date on a revised permit.
- House Bill 163, which would require food service establishments to clearly denote items on their menus that contain cell cultured meat, such as food products designed to share characteristics with actual meat products, plant-based meat alternatives or both.
- House Bill 169, which would amend current law relating to preferential assessment for bona fide conservation use property and forest land conservation use property to sunset a provision that would allow for solar energy generation to be a permissible use of property that would be subject to a conservation use covenant on July 1, 2036.
- House Bill 182, which would prohibit group life insurance policies in Georgia from excluding or restricting liability for the death of an insured individual who is an active-duty service member unless the death is directly or indirectly caused by war or a related act or hazard.
- House Bill 187, which would be a modernization update to the licensing code for electrical contractors, plumbers, conditioned air contractors, low voltage contractors and utility contractors.
- House Bill 227, which would rename low THC oil as medical cannabis throughout Georgia law. The bill would remove the end-stage requirement from the allowed conditions.
- House Bill 232, which would enter Georgia into the Interstate Massage Compact.
- House Bill 233, which would designate Brunswick stew as the official state stew of Georgia.
- House Bill 267, known as the Riley Gaines Act, which would amend current law to provide for separate restrooms and changing areas for males and females during athletic events in schools and post-secondary institutions. Schools and post-secondary institutions would be required to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals unwilling or unable to use a restroom or changing area designated for such individual’s sex. The bill would also provide for separation according to sex for sleeping arrangements on school trips. All public schools, local school systems and post-secondary education institutions participating in competitions or athletic events would be required to designate each team, competition or athletic event as for males, females, co-educational or mixed sex. The bill would also provide for legislative findings on the importance of certain distinctions between the sexes and would require any collector of vital statistics throughout Georgia to identify everyone as either male or female and to replace the term “gender” throughout Georgia law with “sex;”
- House Bill 329, which would authorize certified nurse practitioners and physician assistants to perform artificial insemination as delegated by a physician or surgeon;
- House Bill 352, also known as the Georgia Gestational Diabetes Management Act, which would include patients with gestational diabetes on the list of those eligible for Medicaid covered by continuous glucose monitors. HB 352 would also remove the eligibility requirement for daily insulin administration.
- House Bill 423, which would provide for Next Generation 9-1-1 systems and services and would require all new 9-1-1 systems to conform to wireless enhanced 9-1-1 standards.
- House Bill 495, which would transfer authority of the Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovation from the University System of Georgia to the Georgia Department of Agriculture.
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