www.thecentersquare.com – By Shirleen Guerra | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-24 11:42:00
(The Center Square) – Virginia lawmakers are shifting how the commonwealth handles access, pricing and regulation through a broad package of bills introduced in the 2025 General Assembly.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed the batch of drug-related legislation ahead of his March 24 deadline.
The governor signed 185 bills on Friday, which cover everything from hospital protocols and prescription transparency to criminal penalties and veterinary medicine.
Several of the bills address drug misuse and law enforcement gaps, especially in response to the ongoing fentanyl crisis and the increased use of substances like nitrous oxide.
House Bill 2308adds restrictions on the distribution of nitrous oxide, often misused as a recreational inhalant.
House Bill 2319 legalizes drug-checking products like fentanyl test strips, which were previously classified as illegal paraphernalia.
“Harm reduction is a prudent approach to save lives and reduce risks associated with certain behaviors, including drug use,”saidRobert Melvin, Northeast Region Director, R Street Institute. “By meeting people where they are and equipping them with the education, tools, and resources to make healthier choices.”
House Bill2742 requires urine drug screening to include testing for fentanyl.
Other measures focus on modernizing how Virginia regulates prescriptions and how much patients and providers know about drug costs.
House Bill2375 requires pharmacy services administration organizations to disclose pricing information.
House Bill2378 allows the return of outdated therapeutic drugs to the dispensing pharmacy.
House Bill1698 extends the retail sale and use tax exemption for prescription drugs purchased by veterinarians until July 1, 2027.
Other legislation clarifies how drugs can be administered or compounded in institutional settings like hospitals, long-term care homes and correctional facilities.
House Bill1905 creates exceptions that allow hospital systems to distribute compounded drugs more easily within their networks.
House Bill2473 allows long-acting injectable or extended-release prescription drugs to be administered in correctional facilities.
House Bill2468 authorizes advanced registered medication aides to administer more types of medication.
Two additional bills update how Virginia classifies controlled substances and give pharmacists more flexibility in managing patient care. Drug therapy refers to the use of prescription medications to treat or manage medical conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes. Under the new law, pharmacists can adjust or manage those medications more freely under formal agreements with doctors.
House Bill1582 expands the authority of pharmacists working with providers, whileHouse Bill1587updates the state’s Drug Control Act by adjusting Schedule I and Schedule IV substances.
Congress recently passed and President Trump signed a major Medicaid overhaul bill, set to bring broad changes including potential coverage losses for millions, hospital financial strain, and new work requirements for recipients. Virginia lawmakers are preparing for these upcoming shifts, though exact impacts remain unclear pending detailed analyses from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Democrats warn over 332,000 Virginians might lose coverage, while Governor Youngkin and Republicans dispute these figures, citing outdated studies. The law also mandates employment verification every six months, seen by supporters as reform but criticized as burdensome by opponents. Hospitals warn of closures and service cuts, especially in rural areas, due to funding changes.
The “big beautiful bill” was passed by both chambers of Congress and last week, President Donald Trump signed it into law, triggering a countdown until sweeping changes to Medicaid take effect, including potential coverage loss for millions nationwide, financial strain to hospitals and new work requirements for Medicaid recipients. While the changes won’t kick in for more than a year, Virginia lawmakers are already preparing for the transformation of the state’s health care landscape.
It’s still unclear exactly how many Virginians could lose Medicaid coverage because final analyses from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) haven’t dropped yet. The uncertainty has left many wondering if they or loved ones will be impacted — and set the stage for partisan bickering.
Democrats have warned for weeks that over 322,000 Virginians could lose health insurance, based on a state-by-state breakdown from the U.S. Senate’s Joint Economic Committee and previous CBO estimates released as the bill made its way through Congress.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Tuesday that figure is “literally made up,” while other Republicans have pointed to a 7-year-old state study, conducted before Virginia expanded its Medicaid program in 2018, to claim far fewer would be booted from Medicaid.
Clearer understandings of just what will happen to Medicaid in Virginia and other states may be best found in future OMB reports but its most recent estimates found 10.8 million Americans nationwide could lose insurance as a result of the bill.
‘A moving target’
The bill’s rapid race over the finish line, from the House to the Senate to Trump’s desk in a span of mere weeks, could be the root of confusion about its full impact concerning health care, and lawmakers’ differing interpretations. Analysts and organizations tracking the legislation also tried to keep pace.
While the CBO was able to do further analysis on the House version of the bill earlier in the summer, the shortened timeline for the Senate version before passage, paired with a federal holiday has contributed to a lack of final analysis.
Freddy Mejia, a policy director with The Commonwealth Institute, noted the whiplash lawmakers and analysts experienced trying to keep track of the House and Senate versions of the OBBB.
The impact between the two different bills is “kind of a bit of a moving target,” he said.
He plans to keep an eye out for further reports from CBO now that OBBB has fully passed.
On a national scale, Democrats have stressed that the number of Americans facing the loss of their Medicaid coverage could be close to 17 million. This, a CBO spokesperson said, is because the office created another analysis with provisions that weren’t in the bill that passed, but which could also have an effect: expiration of ACA premium tax credits and a proposed Health and Human Services rule for marketplaces.
Beyond just health insurance, CBO estimated that in general, resources would decrease for lower-income households while increasing for middle class and higher-income households. That supposition, however, stems from the House version of the bill, supported by Virginia Republican U.S. Reps. Jen Kiggans of Virginia Beach and Rob Wittman of Westmoreland, which did not become law. Fresh CBO review could reveal how people in different income brackets will fare with the new law overall.
Old data, new frustrations
State Republicans’ allegations that Democrats’ Medicaid coverage loss estimations were inflated first circulated as the big beautiful bill wound through congress. This week, the debate came to a head with Youngkin accusing Democrats of “extreme assumptions” at an event announcing a slate of regulatory reductions on Tuesday.
“The number that Democrats are throwing around on Virginians who will lose their health coverage is made up,” Youngkin said Tuesday while talking with the media at the event. “They choose extreme assumptions in every measure.”
It’s unclear what data Youngkin is using to refute Virginia Democrats’ Medicaid loss estimates and members of his staff did not respond when asked.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Virginia’s House of Delegates have cited n a 2018 study from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). Garren Shipley, a communications staffer for the House Republican Caucus, shared the study with emphasis that the party doesn’t believe mass disenrollment would happen because of Congress’ bill.
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Like CBO, JLARC is a nonpartisan research entity in state government that lawmakers often tap to study various issues. The 2018 JLARC study Shipley referenced came the same year Virginia expanded its Medicaid program.
At the time, JLARC estimated that about 32% of Virginia’s Medicaid expansion population would be subject to work requirements and 7% would be deterred from enrolling or leaving the program due to the requirements.
As the JLARC study is over seven years old, it’s likely some of its estimations are no longer relevant or accurate. What is certain, however, is that changes to Medicaid requirements and hospital funding mechanisms are on the horizon.
Work requirements, risk to hospitals
Youngkin also framed the work requirements as an important part of Medicaid reform. It’s something state lawmakers had initially considered when expanding the program seven years ago. The new law will require those receiving Medicaid benefits to maintain full-time employment subject to twice-yearly verification, which some lawmakers and advocates say are either unnecessary because many recipients already work, or needlessly burdensome to those living with a disability.
“Redetermination is a really important process,” he said. “It asks us to redetermine every six months, and that gives us a chance to assess who’s gotten a job, (and) who hasn’t complied with the work requirements.”
Youngkin emphasized how Medicaid is supposed to ensure that the “deeply impoverished,” mothers, and children have health insurance rather than able-bodied people “who can get a job and have simply chosen not to.”
Most Medicaid recipients do work, though some like Richmond-area resident Andrew Daughtry, currently do not. A construction worker, he’s tapped into Medicaid for surgeries to recover from an injury that’s left him temporarily unable to work. Earlier this summer he said that it felt “insulting” to have his work ethic questioned.
The twice-yearly employment verification is meant to kick people off their insurance if they aren’t able to keep their jobs while the phase-down of Medicaid provider taxes and state-directed payments are also meant to curb costs for the federal government.
But hospitals warn of heightened chances for closures — particularly in rural areas —- or trimming of offered services and staff. Several hospitals in Southwest and South Side Virginia had already closed obstetrics units, for example, prior to the new congressional bill.
Julian Walker, spokesman for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, reflected on the intent of the Affordable Care Act — a hallmark law of Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency that allowed states to expand their Medicaid eligibility to provide health care to more people to begin with. The law was about keeping people insured and healthy in order to keep everyone’s bills down.
“The impact is not exclusive to the Medicaid population,” Walker said. “It has ripple effects.”
He noted that uninsured people are likely at or closer to poverty levels than insured people. Without health coverage, they’re more likely to put off preventative care or seek treatment for conditions until emergencies arise.
Walker said people’s conditions are likely to be worse by then — requiring more resources between staff, medications, treatments and length of stay in a hospital. Longer stays mean less available beds for others, regardless of Medicaid status.
Ballad Health CEO Alan Levine, remained vocal on social media throughout the reconciliation process to warn that some hospitals would be strained and likely to close. Sometimes, he tagged Virginia’s congressional Republicans, whose districts include rural hospitals and sizable amounts of Medicaid patients.
Hospitals are also federally required to provide care regardless of whether someone can pay their bills or not, so they absorb that cost while also trying to offset it. As hospitals periodically negotiate with private health insurers, Walker said rates will likely go up for employers and employees with private insurance.
“Different constituencies may feel the impacts differently,” Walker said. “Some more than others — but this has potential to have much more far-reaching implications.”
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Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article presents a nuanced view of recent Medicaid legislation, highlighting concerns predominantly raised by Democrats about potential coverage losses and financial strain on hospitals. The language emphasizes the risks to Medicaid recipients and rural healthcare providers, citing nonpartisan sources like the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and independent state studies. While it includes Republican counterarguments, such as Gov. Youngkin’s dismissal of Democrats’ estimates and references to older studies supporting a less severe impact, the overall framing tends to emphasize the possible negative consequences of the bill on vulnerable populations and public health systems. This leans the piece slightly toward a Center-Left perspective, focusing on social safety nets and healthcare access while maintaining some balance by reporting Republican viewpoints.
www.youtube.com – WTVR CBS 6 – 2025-07-09 18:01:01
SUMMARY: Richmond Police Department (RPD) no longer allows government access to its License Plate Reader (LPR) system for immigration enforcement. Despite this, a federal ATF analyst used the LPR program last February to assist in immigration-related operations without RPD’s permission. RPD Chief Rick Edwards condemned this breach, emphasizing that LPR data should not be used for immigration enforcement to maintain community trust. The department disabled its LPR system about a month ago due to concerns over federal misuse. Meanwhile, Chesterfield Police granted limited immigration authority in January but recently revised policies to restrict data sharing with federal agencies. Critics argue such surveillance expansions harm immigrant communities and erode trust in law enforcement.
Federal analyst accessed license plate reader data for immigration enforcement.
www.youtube.com – 13News Now – 2025-07-09 17:25:08
SUMMARY: The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to reduce its staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of September, down from a previously considered cut of 70,000 to 80,000. This 6% reduction follows a Republican spending plan supporting veterans programs. Since January, 17,000 VA employees have been cut, with 12,000 more expected to leave by September 30th through attrition, early retirement, or resignation. The announcement received mixed reactions, with some community members concerned about impacts on veterans and military families. Local employment centers are preparing to assist affected VA workers.
The VA said the cuts to staff have been reduced by 6% instead of 15% as originally planned.
