COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – Data shows South Carolina is spending more money than other states to boost people’s health, but it’s not paying off: South Carolinians are among the unhealthiest Americans.
Lawmakers believe they have a plan to tackle it.
Last year, a bill to merge six state health agencies fell apart in the final moments of the legislative session, just short of reaching the governor’s desk, after a procedural maneuver from members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus.
Now lawmakers are reviving that proposal in 2025 but with some key changes.
“Our communities have a growing number of homeless people, many of whom have untreated mental, physical, or substance addiction problems. They fall through the cracks of a system that does not coordinate, communicate, or collaborate. We must fix this,” Gov. Henry McMaster told members of the General Assembly on Wednesday night, during his annual State of the State address.
The day after McMaster made that entreaty about South Carolina’s disjoined healthcare delivery system — found to be the most fractured of any state in the nation — senators held their first hearing of the year on a bill to address that issue.
As opposed to last year’s version, which would have merged six state agencies into one, this new bill would combine three agencies — the existing Department of Mental Health, Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, and Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services — and create a new “Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.”
“Individuals with mental health problems, addiction problems, and disability disorder, they overlap and in many instances are shuttled from one agency to another, and the result is they’re not getting the care they deserve in a timely way,” Sen. Tom Davis, R – Beaufort and a sponsor of the bill, said during Thursday’s hearing in a Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee. “We are failing that particular population.”
The leaders of two of those existing agencies, Mental Health and Disabilities and Special Needs, are accountable to unelected boards.
However, supporters believe merging the departments into a new cabinet agency accountable to and able to be fired by the governor will make them more responsive to South Carolinians’ needs.
“If you want to have accountability and you don’t want to have bureaucratic control and you don’t want to have mission creep, put them under the authority of the chief executive that’s in charge of that executive branch,” Davis said.
Last year’s bill overwhelmingly passed in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
But it was met with criticism from some lawmakers, particularly members of the Freedom Caucus, who claimed it would create a position akin to a “health czar.”
Those critiques have not gone away, brought up by a speaker during Thursday’s public hearing.
But supporters of the legislation countered that claim is not true.
“I think a lot of you guys have a lot more confidence in our Machiavellian ability to do conspiracy than we do because if you haven’t noticed, the government isn’t as good at creating conspiracy as you think it is,” Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R – Spartanburg, said.
The bill’s hearing Thursday was its first, so the legislation is still several steps away from reaching the governor.
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