Committee adopts resolution to create study group on insurance market reforms

A House committee voted to adopt House Resolution 659, establishing a study committee to review insurance market reforms.

The resolution, presented to the committee from Legislative Counsel file LC 520839, directs the newly created panel to study the insurance markets and report back to the General Assembly. "This is a bill that creates a study committee to look at insurance market reforms," a committee member said while reading the resolution.

Legislative Counsel proposed an amendment that removed compensation for legislative members who serve on the committee and specified reimbursement language for nonlegislative state officials. Under the amendment, nonlegislative state officials serving on the committee "shall receive the daily expense allowance in an amount the same as that specified in subsection (b) of Code Section 45-7-201 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, as well as the mileage or transportation allowance authorized for state employees," Legislative Counsel explained to the committee.

Committee members moved and seconded the amendment; a voice vote was held and the chair declared the amendment adopted. The committee then voted by voice and the resolution was adopted as amended. The transcript records the outcome as adopted but does not provide a roll-call tally or named vote counts.

Discussion on the measure focused on the structure and funding for committee members rather than the substantive directions of the study. Committee members asked that Legislative Counsel present the proposed amendment before final action; counsel read the two-part amendment aloud, explaining changes to membership numbers and to the allowances and funding section beginning at the line cited in the counsel file. Questions from members centered on the amendment's language aligning reimbursement for nonlegislative members with existing state employee allowances and mileage rules. One member indicated they would move the amendment at the appropriate time and Representative Reeves was identified in the transcript as associated with that motion.

The committee took no further formal actions on related statutes or budgetary authorizations during the recorded sequence; the resolution establishes the study committee and sets reimbursement parameters but does not appropriate funds beyond the referenced daily-expense and mileage rules. The meeting adjourned shortly after the vote.