Lawmakers expand law requiring insurers to cover more prosthetics, this time adding state workers

Hannah Nabors, a special education teacher in Rome, lost her left leg last February after she was pinned under her car for two hours following a crash.

But Nabors, who is also a cross country and soccer coach, was immediately determined not to let the loss of a limb stop her from living her life. After waking up from surgery, Nabors told her family that she wanted to run the Boston Marathon.

She quickly learned, though, that because she was a state employee, her insurance would not cover the running blade she would need to pursue her goal.

In Georgia, state-regulated commercial insurance plans give people living with limb loss or limb difference access to three medically necessary prosthetic or orthotic devices per affected limb every three years, thanks to a law passed in 2025. However, that is not the case for amputees like Nabors who are on the state health benefit plan – which covers one basic device every three years. 

“It’s not fair that if I had any other job besides serving the state, I would have access to up to three devices,” Nabors said.

Nabors was able to afford a running blade after her community in northwest Georgia hosted a fundraiser for her last August. She said that without that donation, she probably would not even have been able to afford a prosthesis to use in the shower.

Nabors says she cried after the first time she ran a mile with her specialized leg.

“To reclaim a part of my life that I thought was gone forever is something I will never take for granted,” she said. “But it’s not fair that there are people in Georgia who maybe don’t have an amazing community like Rome to fundraise for a blade.”

Stories like Nabors’ inspired state Rep. David Clark, a Buford Republican and candidate for lieutenant governor, to introduce House Bill 951 in this year’s just-ended legislative session. 

Clark’s bill would guarantee that same access to three prosthetic devices, specifically one basic device and two specialized ones, for state employees starting next year. 

Language from the bill passed both chambers and is awaiting Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature, but the path to passage was anything but straightforward.

 In 2025, Clark included state employees in another bill, which was his first bill to require health benefit policy coverage for medically necessary orthotic and prosthetic devices, but it stalled in the Senate after it passed in the House.

This led Cataula Republican Sen. Randy Robertson to include the proposal in a bill he sponsored last year.

Robertson says he was inspired to take on Clark’s bill after meeting a young patient with the advocacy group So Everybody Can Move Georgia who told him that his family’s insurance company denied him from receiving a shower prosthesis.

“They didn’t see showering as a health issue,” Robertson said. “It motivated me that a young boy was being denied.”

But Clark and Auyer say the state health benefit plan and the health plan for the University System of Georgia, which covers members of the Board of Regents, was left out due to state budget concerns.

“We had a fiscal note that didn’t match the actual cost our state would incur,” said Rachael Auyer, Georgia’s co-state lead of So Everybody Can Move.

Auyer says last year, they were told the fiscal note to have the state health benefit plan cover three prosthetic devices per affected limb would be $55 million, but that she knew that number was out of proportion.

“Our patient population is a small percentage of our overall population and even smaller of our state health benefit and board of regents employee population,” Auyer said.

The fiscal note for Clark’s bill provided by state auditor Greg Griffin determined that less than 25,000 members on both the state health benefit plan and university system health plan use prosthetic or orthotic devices. The new projected cost to cover three devices for these members came to $1.5 million.

Clark’s new bill also stalled in the Senate after it passed in the House earlier this year. But the proposal ultimately passed as part of Senate Bill 503 through some late-session legislative maneuvering. 

Kelley Berk, a certified prosthetist at Shamrock Prosthetics and the patient advocate lead for So Everybody Can Move Georgia, says they are “fighting for basic human health care.”

“Mobility is medicine,” Berk said.

Lynda Fisher, a patient advocate for So Everybody Can Move, is proof of this.

Fisher, a Board of Regents employee, lost her daughter in a June 2018 crash and was left with chronic ankle pain. About four years later, she decided to have her left leg amputated below the knee.

Fisher, who says she was training to run a triathlon with her late daughter before the accident, said she was able to get a running blade through a grant from the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

“It was through the healing of my body that I began to deeply heal from the grief and the sorrow of losing my daughter,” Fisher said. “Had I not received that grant, I would not have been able to get a running blade through my insurance because it’s not covered.”

Fisher said realizing that there were others in the limb loss and limb difference community who might not have the capacity to advocate for themselves inspired her to speak at the state Capitol two years ago.

“We all have to fight for our health care,” Fisher said. “I’m going to fight for you because I’ve been where you are.”

Nabors said the moment after running her first mile and her career as a special education teacher inspired her to advocate for change at the Capitol. She says she repeatedly told her students that their disabilities did not have to hold them back and that she’s had to believe that for herself since her accident.

“Hard doesn’t get the final say,” said Nabors, who is set to accomplish her goal of running in the Boston Marathon later this month. “I want to show that we are still capable of living full lives.”