The West Virginia Legislature has finally wrapped up its regular legislative session. As we expected, the last few days were a marathon of chaos, with many bills just barely passing before deadline and several unexpectedly left behind in the dust.
The Editorial Board had more than 100 bills on its radar, and over the next few days, we’d like to discuss the fates of some of the bills we watched most closely. The following are all bills that passed the Legislature. Several are still awaiting Gov. Jim Justice’s signature.
Good: SB 577, to lower the insulin copay cap to $35 for a 30-day supply of insulin, in aggregate, even if someone is on multiple kinds of insulin; and to limit the copay for devices (blood glucose test strips, glucometers, continuous glucose monitors (CGM), lancets, lancing devices or insulin syringes, but not including insulin pumps) to $100, in aggregate, per 30-day supply.
This is obviously a big win for West Virginians. According to 2018 numbers from the American Diabetes Association, approximately 16% of West Virginians have been diagnosed with diabetes, with an additional 12,000 people being diagnosed every year. Hopefully, this new law will mean fewer people will have to choose between food, shelter and life-saving medication.
Bad: HB 2007, to prohibit gender-affirming surgery for transgender youth under 18 and to severely limit gender-affirming care and medication for minors. The only silver lining of this bill is that the version that passed is slightly better than the original, which would have banned gender-affirming care completely. This version allows “pubertal modulating and hormonal therapy for severe gender dysphoria” if the minor and their legal guardians jump through a bunch of hoops. Even then, the law specifies that any hormone therapy or puberty blockers must be kept to “lowest titratable dosage necessary to treat the psychiatric condition and not for purposes of gender alteration.”
HB 2007 unfairly targets and scapegoats a marginalized community. Not only that, but it perpetuates the myth that gender-affirming care is somehow abusive when, in fact, gender-affirming care is quantitatively proven to save the lives of people with gender dysphoria. Lawmakers admitted that when they found out gender-affirming surgery doesn’t happen for minors under 18, they had to go after the next best thing: puberty blockers and hormone therapies. Because it’s not really about kids — if it was, this decision would remain between families and their doctors. This is about scoring points in the national culture wars, and transgender youth make for the perfect symbolic target. Unfortunately, culture war crusaders forget they are interfering with the very real lives of very real people.
Stupid: HB 2526, the final iteration of the tax cuts. It starts with a 21.25% income tax cut, with a triggering mechanism for additional 10% income tax cuts in the future. It also contains a personal property tax credit for vehicles, a 50% personal property tax break supposedly aimed at small businesses and a tax credit for disabled veterans on personal income taxes on a homestead. State officials estimate the tax bill will cost $695 million in fiscal year 2024 and $817.8 million upon full implementation.
Tax cuts might look good at the moment while the state is flush with cash, but once all that one-time money from the federal government and unusually high severance taxes dries up, West Virginia is going to be in trouble.
In a few years, we’ll likely be back in this space writing “we told you so” as the state nickels and dimes the middle and working classes with consumption taxes to make up the lost revenue. We’d like to be proven wrong, but we doubt we will be.
