2023 NASW-NC Legislative Session Update: Week 4 - Harmful bills on the move

Last week at the North Carolina Legislature was met with more harmful legislation introduced that require your action. Please see more below:

"Parent’s Bill of Rights"

On Tuesday, members of the North Carolina Senate introduced SB49 Parents Bill of Rights. The bill would do many things, but, among them include:   

• Prohibit teaching curriculum including gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten – 4th grade. This can extend into the conversations students and educators have in the classroom, books and lesson plans, and the media.
• Prohibit a healthcare provider (including social workers!) from providing, soliciting, or arranging treatment for a minor child without first obtaining written consent from that minor child's parent. This means that providing LGBTQ affirming care, such as mental health care, to queer and trans students could cause providers to incur a $5,000 fine for violating this law.
• Parents already have rights to make decisions about their students’ healthcare; this bill makes it more difficult for healthcare professionals to offer gender-affirming care by threatening them with fines and encourages parents to distrust healthcare providers.
• Just as the bill places an undue burden on teachers with documentation requirements, the bill places an undue burden on healthcare professionals by forcing them to jump through unnecessary hoops to provide care to students. Parents already have rights to make decisions about their children’s healthcare, and this bill creates additional steps for providing important healthcare services in the name of “parental consent.” 
• Anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills harm the mental health of queer and trans youth. With the prevalence of suicidal ideation trending upward among LGBTQ young people over the last three years, bills like SB49 have life or death consequences.

NASW-NC Opposes this bill and asks you to take action to contact your state Senator here. We expect the bill to fly through the Rules committee today at 5:30pm and see a vote on the house floor as early as Tuesday.

NASW and Interstate Licensing Compact Legislation

NASW today announced it will not support Interstate Licensing Compact legislation if it codifies biased Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) licensing exams. Here is the NASW statement: https://bit.ly/3X2SCEs

Abortion Protection

Every Democrat in the North Carolina General Assembly has signed on to sponsor a bill that would codify Roe v. Wade abortion protections, showing a unified front as Republicans aim to further restrict abortion access. The legislation, filed jointly in the House and Senate as the Codify Roe and Casey Protections Act, has virtually no chance of passing the Republican-controlled legislature. However, the fact that all Democrats support it does bolster hopes among abortion rights activists that Democrats will uphold Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto if he strikes down an abortion ban. Republican leaders have promised a bill to restrict abortion this session, but a specific proposal has yet to be released. 

NASW-NC Supports this bill.

Source: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article271880122.html

Medicaid Expansion 

Medicaid expansion in North Carolina is still on tenterhooks this legislative session with a sticking point between the House and Senate likely to return. Lawmakers in the state Senate filed a bill Tuesday that would repeal North Carolina’s Certificate of Need (CON) regulation, a law that requires health care providers to get approval by the state for new health care facilities, medical equipment purchases and more. This limits competition hospitals might face. During the last legislative session, Medicaid expansion seemed to be on the brink of passage, but disagreements between the House and the Senate on what the bill should look like stalled negotiations.

In June, the Senate, in a near-unanimous vote, passed a bill to expand Medicaid with CON regulation changes. The House passed a separate bill, which authorized a study after which a second vote would be necessary to authorize expansion, as previously reported by The News & Observer. In March, the House and Senate both filed CON repeal bills, which appeared to be identical. Neither passed.

Source: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article271919847.html

Voting Rights

The state Supreme Court met Thursday to discuss a case on whether thousands of formerly incarcerated North Carolina residents serving a felony sentence can retain the right to vote. The court was packed. About 50 people were not allowed entrance and viewed the arguments in the case in a nearby church, which was streaming it.

Arguments largely centered on whether the state law that delineates how people’s voting rights are restored is constitutional and whether it had discriminatory intent. Up until last year, people who had finished their prison sentence but remained on probation or other supervision, estimated at over 50,000 by advocates, could not vote under state law. But recent court rulings temporarily granted them the right to vote. The Supreme Court’s future ruling may provide insight into how the court will proceed for the next few years. In the November elections, the court flipped from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority.

According to Forward Justice research, Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina but represented 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision.

Source: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article271845622.html

Child Safety 

S20, Safe Surrender Infants/ Safe Sleep Prog. Funds, which was filed last week, saw substantial movement this week. The bill initially included two long-standing priorities of the Child Fatality Task Force (which includes a number of social workers on the taskforce): Safe surrender, and safe sleep. Regarding safe surrender, the bill includes language that addresses confidentiality, immunity, and duties of those in temporary custody of the infant.  

Regarding safe sleep, S20 did include a $250,000 recurring appropriation to educate parents and family members on preventing infant deaths in unsafe sleep environments. However, during the Senate Health Care Committee Thursday, the bill was revised to remove that. Senator Burgin stated that the $250,000 recurring appropriation for safe sleep will instead be included in the budget. The bill received a favorable report as amended and is now headed to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  

Source: https://ncchild.org/what-we-do/can-update/ 

Prohibition of Certain Hormone/Surgery/Minors

A group of Republicans in the state House filed a bill Wednesday (HB 43) that would prohibit medical professionals from providing hormones or conducting medical procedures that facilitate a “minor’s desire to present or appear in a manner that is inconsistent with the minor’s sex.

The bill, if it were to win enough support to become law, would prohibit gender-affirming care such as surgeries for such purposes for people under 18 that “sterilize,” such as vasectomies, which cuts sperm supply to semen, and hysterectomies, which remove the uterus and end periods and the possibility of pregnancy.

When it comes to minors seeking such treatment for restricted reasons, House Bill 43 also would prohibit:

• A mastectomy, a surgical operation to remove a breast
• Medications that “induce transient or permanent infertility” such as medication that delays or blocks puberty
• The supply of testosterone and other androgens to female patients as well as the supply of estrogen and other hormones to male patients.

Primary bill sponsors are Republican House Reps. George Cleveland, Keith Kidwell, Bill Ward and Steve Tyson. Ward told The News & Observer Wednesday that for the sponsors of the bill, “the consensus was that juveniles, those under the age of 18, should not have gender-affirming surgeries or hormone treatments that should be reserved for those that are adults to make that decision. And that’s really the basis of the bill,” he said.

North Carolina is not alone in seeing this kind of legislation. At least 20 bills were proposed last year for this year’s legislative sessions that sought to limit or prohibit access to transgender medical care for youth, The Hill reported. On Saturday, Utah’s Republican governor signed legislation that prohibits transgender surgery for youth and disallows hormone treatments for minors, NPR reported.

NASW-NC Opposes this bill. We will continue to watch the movement on this bill. It has not been assigned committees and we are hopeful this bill will not move forward.

Source: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article271948117.html

Medical Marijuana/ Compassionate Care Act

Medical marijuana will be back up for discussion this legislative session. It’s back with the same name: The N.C. Compassionate Care Act (SB 3). If medical marijuana becomes legal in North Carolina, people with certain medical conditions, like cancer, could get prescribed the drug. “I have a lot of veterans, a lot of people I know, who this could make a big difference in their life going forward,” Rep. Garland Pierce (D-Hoke) said.

While some lawmakers are more optimistic this time around, not everyone is hoping for the bill to be passed. Sen. Jim Burgin (R-Harnett) previously spoke publicly about his opposition to the bill in June of 2022. “I appreciate the sponsors desire to help those who are suffering with physical or mental health issues. Marijuana does not treat the ailment. it only masks the symptoms,” Burgin said.

All but 13 states in the U.S. have a medical marijuana program. South Dakota and Alabama have programs, but those programs are not operating yet. If the act passes, North Carolina’s laws would be more strict compared to those in other states, such as controls over signage and the list of approved conditions.

Source: https://www.wral.com/medical-marijuana-bill-resurrected-in-legislative-session/20703582/

End of Public Health Emergency - Big Changes coming to Medicaid and Disability Services

The Biden administration announced last week that the COVID-19 public health emergency, which has been in place since January 2020, is set to end on May 11.

Under the public health emergency, which has been in place since 2020, states have been eligible for extra federal funding for Medicaid in exchange for agreeing not to drop most beneficiaries from the program. The federal government has also given home and community-based services providers added flexibilities as they work to maintain staffing.

The change will trigger a massive effort by Medicaid programs nationwide, including North Carolina, to re-evaluate each beneficiary to determine whether or not they remain eligible. That has advocates worried that some people with developmental disabilities could be inadvertently dropped from the program even if they still qualify.

Sources:

https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2023/02/06/big-changes-coming-to-medicaid-disability-services-as-public-health-emergency-ends/30229/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/podcasts/the-daily/pandemic-emergency-end.html

Resources:

NC Medicaid End of COVID-19 PHE Toolkit

https://medicaid.ncdhhs.gov/End-of-PHE-LocalDSS

ALMOST FULL! North Carolina Social Work Advocacy Day!

After two years of an entirely virtual program, the 2023 North Carolina Social Work Advocacy Day will be in-person in Raleigh on Wednesday, March 1, 2023! We are so excited to share in-person space with you and collectively advocate for issues that affect social work, our clients and our communities.  

Space is limited so be sure to register TODAY: https://www.naswnc.org/event/2023SocialWorkAdvocacyDay

Attendees are HIGHLY encouraged to attend the Free Webinar: 2023 NASW-NC Legislative Agenda and Advocacy 101: Advocating for Social Work and Social Justice in 2023 on Wednesday, February 15, 2023 at noon Eastern. This will be a live webinar open to everyone. This webinar will be recorded for later viewing. 1 hour of CE is available to attendees of the webinar. Registration is separate for this webinar.

Please subscribe to NASW-NC Advocacy Alerts here.