Expanding coverage for biomarker testing gives families hope
As a doctor treating children with cancers and blood disorders, I journey with families through their most challenging times. Unfortunately, many Georgians lacked access to a cure because simple testing was not covered by Medicaid. Now, our General Assembly just passed a bill expanding insurance coverage for biomarker testing, giving hope for that cure.
Biomarker testing for specific genes, proteins, and molecules can improve our chances to identify treatment. This bill is one step toward equitable access to curative therapies. I’ve seen firsthand the impact on children and families who have fallen short of hope for a cure because their insurance lacks coverage for screening and treatment.
I look forward to the General Assembly’s continued engagement of stakeholders, experts and community leaders. I thank Georgia lawmakers for taking this critical step to expand coverage and encourage Gov. Brian Kemp to sign into law this week, cementing the path toward a cure for Georgians in need.
STACI D. ARNOLD, M.D., ATLANTA
Imposing tax for vehicle charging is misguided
With the passage of the electricity tax for vehicle charging stations, we have clear evidence that Republican legislators could not care less about the health, well-being, or future of Georgia’s children, the environment or the planet.
Rather than encouraging pollution reduction by putting a surcharge on the gas guzzlers that cost taxpayers billions in environmental damage, they choose this misguided approach.
This legislature ignores the science that has determined increasingly violent storm damage is caused primarily by the use of fossil fuels. We taxpayers are footing the bill for floods, tornados, hurricanes and droughts dramatically increased by fossil fuel use, not to mention the cost of adverse health effects from air pollution caused by gas-powered vehicles.
They make this choice rather than supporting in every way possible the multiple levels of savings we would gain -- and be able to use to fix Georgia’s roads -- by moving as quickly as possible to an all-EV state.
I’d call that not just unfair, but downright irresponsible.
SUSAN ANDRE, DUNWOODY
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