{"id":5614,"date":"2011-11-02T08:58:49","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T13:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=5614"},"modified":"2011-11-02T08:58:49","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T13:58:49","slug":"pville-post-tort-reform-medicaid-local-legislation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/pville-post-tort-reform-medicaid-local-legislation\/","title":{"rendered":"p’ville post: tort reform, medicaid, local legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Powdersillve Post<\/a> by Jason Evans<\/p>\n

Sen. Bryant speaks on tort reform, Medicaid, local legislation<\/p>\n

POWDERSVILLE \u2014 Sen. Kevin Bryant\u2019s school days are behind him, but he recently received a passing grade from Gov. Nikki Haley<\/p>\n

Haley gave Bryant an \u201cA\u201d score on her legislative report cards.<\/p>\n

Bryant, who represents District 3 in the SC Senate spoke at a recent Town Hall meeting hosted by Councilman Ken Waters at Wren High School.<\/p>\n

He spoke about some of the items Haley highlighted in her report card including on-the-record voting<\/p>\n

Bryant has long been a proponent of transparency, often asking for his vote to be entered in the record during voice votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoice votes are when the presiding officer says \u2018All in favor say aye and all opposed say no\u2019, and you don\u2019t know how they\u2019re voting,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n

Before legislation was proposed requiring votes to be recorded, the Senate changed its rules to require that votes be recorded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe changed our rules very early, yet the governor was very adamant that it be put in statute,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cI don\u2019t think you really care how we do it \u2014 you just want to know how we vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryant said that even though he voted for the on-the-record legislation, \u201cI just don\u2019t see the big deal there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all done,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s in legislation and it\u2019s in the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visit scsenate.gov to find out how senators are voting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a lot of waste in Medicaid,\u201d said Bryant, who owns a pharmacy in Anderson. \u201cA customer comes up to me with a prescription that costs $1,000 and their co-pay is $3.40, or the customer comes up to me and their prescription is $10 and their co-pay is $3.40 \u2014 there\u2019s no consumerism there on their part to save you the taxpayer money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryant said he believed Medicaid should be allowed to use prior authorizations \u2014 making a customer meet a level of criteria before a prescription or procedure is paid for.<\/p>\n

Prior authorizations can be a pain to providers, Bryant said, but he feels they are necessary<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the dollars are scarce and we need to protect your money,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n

He also spoke on a tort reform bill that caps punitive damages on lawsuits.<\/p>\n

The bill does not cap economic damages \u2014 loss of wages, damages to crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cPunitive damages are these things that go over and beyond, and those are capped at $500,000,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cThat\u2019s still a very large amount of money. That will help our economy. Anytime you do something to prevent frivolous lawsuits, it does help our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryant said he supported the majority of Gov. Haley\u2019s budget vetoes.<\/p>\n

He spoke about local legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal legislation is a bill that comes to the Senate and only two people vote, me and Sen. O\u2019Dell, the only two people that represent Anderson County,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cThen it goes to the House and the only ones who vote on it are the House members and it only applies to Anderson County.\u201d<\/p>\n

He feels the legislature \u201chas gone too far\u201d regarding local legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some bills that would allow some school districts to borrow money to pay ongoing expenses \u2014 to bond out money to pay the light bill, so to speak,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cI felt that wasn\u2019t necessary, even though it wasn\u2019t Anderson County. I felt like what they\u2019re doing is being very irresponsible. The state\u2019s going to have to bail them out, so it does affectyou up here, even though the school district is across the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Haley has been vetoing many such local legislation bills, Bryant said.<\/p>\n

Bryant also spoke on the proposed Department of Administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Carolina is the only state that has a Budget and Control Board,\u201d he said. \u201cThe legislature controls more things in South Carolina than in most state. Our Office is the Governor is very weak. I feel personally that that\u2019s not the best way to do business. The legislature ought to pass law and the executive branch ought to put forth that law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Administration bill eliminates the Budget and Control Board \u2026 puts a lot of these things in the executive branch,\u201d Bryant continued.<\/p>\n

He feels confident the Senate will pass that bill in the upcoming session.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be one of the first things we do when we go back in January,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n

The legislature could also look at changing the state Constitution to allow the State Superintendent of Education to be appointed, not elected, Bryant said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would require two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate and then it would be put on the ballot for you to vote on,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n

He also approves merging the Department of Parole with the Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n

Bryant said he didn\u2019t know if the Voter ID bill would be in effect in time for next year\u2019s election, as there is a court challenge to the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like that was very important,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cI feel like if I go vote, and someone goes to vote that shouldn\u2019t be voting, they stole my vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Carolina is $32 billion in debt, a figure that includes unfunded liabilities, police officers retirement and state retirement, local government, unemployment and higher education, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the legislature has been doing is offering things without figuring out how to pay for them,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cThat\u2019s how we got into this mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paying off the debt will lower unemployment taxes that employers have to pay, which will in turn help employers create jobs, Bryant said.<\/p>\n

Bryant is up for re-election in 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be up for hire or fire,\u201d he said. “I’ll leave that up to you.”
\n\u00a9 powdersvillepost.com 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Powdersillve Post by Jason Evans Sen. Bryant speaks on tort reform, Medicaid, local legislation POWDERSVILLE \u2014 Sen. Kevin Bryant\u2019s school days are behind him, but he recently received a passing grade from Gov. Nikki Haley Haley gave Bryant an \u201cA\u201d score on her legislative report cards. Bryant, who represents District 3 in the SC Senate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-1sy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}