Georgia HB 476: The Embedded Poison Pill
by PV
HB 476 is the mimic of Obama Care at the federal level for Georgians to come under. One of our sharp-eyed readers took a close look at HB 476 and discovered a “poison pill” hidden in it, and notified us.
NOTE: “Poison pill”, in this application, means poisonous to Georgians.
On Lines 118-120 of HB 476, there is this statement in this bill:
“In the adoption of bylaws, regulations, policies, and procedures or in the exercise of any regulatory power, the authority shall be exempt from the requirements of Chapter 13 of Title 50, the ‘Georgia Administrative Procedure Act’;”
What is Chapter 13 of Title 50, the Georgia Administrative Procedure Act? Well, to put it in layman’s terms, it is the section of Georgia Code that provides a legal construct for how state boards, authorities, and commissions are to operate.
And, specific to what you, the average Georgia citizen, needs to know is if this new insurance authority is exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act, they will be allowed, by law, to do ANYTHING they damn well please when it comes to your rights. In fact, you will have no rights.
You will have no rights to due process, you will have no rights to “Rules of Evidence”, you will have no rights to any type of “fairness” of treatment by this new board OR its members.
This type of exclusion to the Georgia Administrative Procedures Act smacks of a desire by the writers and conceivers of this bill to shrug their shoulders and say to you (Georgia citizen) “Go eat cake. Go pound sand. Go to Hades. We don’t care about your rights because the Legislature saw fit to exempt us from caring about your rights.”
They will be able to set their OWN rules without following Georgia’s Administrative Act requirements on how they are to develop rules. Just as a glimpse of what we’re talking about here, OCGA 50-13-3 states the following with regards to rules developed by a state authority/board:
“50-13-3. Adoption of rules of organization and practice; public inspection and validity of rules, policies, orders, decisions, and opinions
(a) In addition to other rule-making requirements imposed by law, each agency shall:
(1) Adopt as a rule a description of its organization, stating the general course and method of its operations and the methods whereby the public may obtain information or make submissions or requests;
(2) Adopt rules of practice setting forth the nature and requirements of all formal and informal procedures available, including a description of all forms and instructions used by the agency;
(3) Make available for public inspection all rules and all other written statements of policy or interpretations formulated, adopted, or used by the agency in the discharge of its functions; and
(4) Make available for public inspection all final orders, decisions, and opinions except those expressly made confidential or privileged by statute.
(b) No agency rule, order, or decision shall be valid or effective against any person or party nor may it be invoked by the agency for any purpose until it has been published or made available for public inspection as required in this Code section. This provision is not applicable in favor of any person or party who has actual knowledge thereof.”
If this new Insurance Authority is allowed to pass rules without making them available for public inspection, well, all of a sudden, we will likely have a case of a Secret Insurance Police formed to enforce such rules that are made in secret.
There are many other parts of the Georgia Administrative Procedure Act that were originally written to protect Georgians from the rule of having heavy-handed, capricious acts committed by Georgia boards against Georgia legal persons.
And, you know what the most sickening part of this poison pill issue is? To us, and ANY true liberty/conservative-minded individual? That the Georgia Administrative Procedure Act was developed and passed by Democrats when they ran Georgia government from top to bottom.
And now, we have Republican legislators intent upon dismantling these protections that Democrats thought would be a good idea to codify to ensure Georgia citizens could be protected by a capricious-acting state-authorized board, authority, or commission.
Representative Richard Smith is lead sponsor of HB 476, and he is a Republican from Columbus, Georgia. The co-sponsor of this bill is John Meadows, a Republican rep from Calhoun, Georgia.
This exemption has a criminal mind behind it. Because, in order to specifically insert this exemption language, you have to have the forethought of believing that this board SHOULD have the authority to trample on your rights without a care in the world, and, be allowed by law to effect that trampling of the protections afforded by state law that now apply to all other state boards/authorities.
These are very dangerous times, Ladies and Gentleman. It is only through sharp-eyed activism by many people concerned with the ever-marching onslaught from the State to totally takeover your lives and freedoms afforded by laws currently in place that this type of intended legislation was uncovered.
Feel free to forward this on to whomever you wish, and to hammer your legislators to ensure this exemption is REMOVED from this bill, however this bill gets revised.
AND…to you legislators who think this exemption should be in this bill, and who intend to make sure it remains in the bill, you will be identified to be the corrupt-minded, Obama-loving legislator that you are. Because it is Obama whom we now know to be a Marxist. And, it is someone of the mindset of Obama who would think it would be a “good idea” to take away a citizen’s right to fair, transparent, and the “open government” so many of our legislators claim they are in favor of, but really, they are not.
