BY OLYMPIA MEOLA
A House committee this morning passed a measure requiring drug screening for people who receive certain public assistance and a bill to repeal the HPV vaccine requirement for girls.
After a heated debate, the Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee reported the drug screening measure and referred it to the House Appropriations Committee to consider its fiscal impact, pegged at $1.3 million in general fund dollars in the first year and about $1 million annually after that.
The legislation would require local social services departments to screen people receiving Virginia Initiative for Employment not Welfare (VIEW) benefits to determine if there’s reason to believe the person is using illegal substances. If so, a formal test would be done, which could include a drug test. It’s unclear what the “screening” would entail.
Anyone who tests positive or refuses to participate “without good cause” would not be able to receive TANF payments unless the person enters into a drug treatment program. The person would have an opportunity to reapply.
Several similar measures were rolled into HB73, sponsored by Del. Richard P. Bell, R-Staunton.
Del. Lionell Spruill, D-Chesapeake, raised questions about testing people who have already been on the program for years without any indication of drug use and noted other groups receive taxpayer dollars — state lawmakers and corporations, for example.
“Now we’re picking on people who are poor,” he said. “Why are we singling out this one group?”
“If you’ve got a heart at all, do the right thing.”
Robert B. Bell, R-Albemarle, said the program is one of the few where beneficiaries receive cash.
“It is foolish for the government to give its precious … tax dollars to people that are going to use it to buy drugs and I don’t think you’re providing any benefit to the drug user to give him cash with which to use those drugs,” he said.
Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Henrico, raised questions of constitutionality.
“I find it inexplicable that we are now endorsing an idea where we invade somebody’s body, draw their blood to determine if that person has committed an illegal act.”
Also this morning, the committee passed a bill to repeal a requirement that girls receive the HPV vaccine.
Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell, argued that the decision to give the vaccination to girls before they enter sixth grade should be up to parents.
Del. Christopher Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, a doctor, said the mandate requires the commissioner of health to send a letter to parents that gives information about HPV. The parents can then choose whether to seek the vaccine for their child.
“By removing the mandate, all we’re doing is not sending a letter informing the patients anymore,” he said.
Byron told reporters after the meeting that the children go to a doctor to get the other required vaccinations so “I would think that a doctor would be very well equipped to be able to give that information in the doctor’s office when he gives out information regarding the other required vaccinations.”
The cost to the state to administer the HPV vaccine is about $1 million a year, ($263,566 from the general fund), and Del. David L. Englin, D-Alexandria, raised concerns that if the requirement was scrapped, then low-income children would not have access to the vaccine.
According to a fiscal impact statement, local health departments provided 6,479 doses of the HPV vaccine in fiscal year 2011. The Department of Planning and Budget indicated that it could not determine a potential fiscal impact from the legislation.
