It was a busy week in Montgomery. The Senate passed a bill on driver’s license offices, and a prisons bill. The House debated church daycare licensing. And House representatives passed a general fund budget that level funded most agencies except one: Medicaid. It got a small increase, though there’s still concern among lawmakers, and some of it stems from the federal American Health Care Act.
In fact, the House plan sets aside $97 million to protect against uncertainty in Congress around the new federal health care bill. Medicaid would get $700 million, plus $105 million in BP oil settlement money.
Lawmakers also moved a very different prisons construction bill along, as well as a bill that would require driver’s license offices to open at least one day a week.
WBHM’s Gigi Douban spoke with Don Dailey, host of Alabama Public Television’s Capitol Journal.