GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) – High School state baseball tournaments continued on Wednesday in South Carolina.

4A Upper State Champions Laurens played in a must-win game two with James Island at Laurens High School Wednesday night.

The Raiders had a lead heading into the top of the 7th inning when James Island battled back with two outs. They turned that momentum into a state championship. Defeating Laurens 10-7.

The 3A State Championship is headed to a third and final game on Friday after Powdersville wins a must-win game two on interference at the plate in the 12th inning. Powdersville had taken a 5-4 lead in the 12th on a single to keep their championship dreams alive.

The winner-take-all game three of the State Championship Series will be played at 3:00 pm on Saturday at Gilbert.

Copyright 2024 WHNS. All rights reserved.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) – Medicaid expansion has long been something of a third rail at the South Carolina State House since it became an option about a decade ago.

Since then, 40 states have opted to expand eligibility to the government-funded program that provides health coverage to lower-income Americans, but not South Carolina.

One Republican lawmaker believes it is now time to at least have a conversation about it, as part of larger discussions into reforming the healthcare market in South Carolina.

“If we don’t do something, we’re lurching toward a single-payer system,” Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said. “We’re lurching toward a system where people throw their hands up in the air and say, ‘This is too darn complicated. We’re going to turn everything over to the government and have them on a top-down basis manage everything.’ That would be a disaster.”

Davis wants to form a new committee that would study the issue in the coming months to determine what changes to the healthcare market would benefit South Carolinians.

The committee would be established through a provision in the proposed state budget, which will be finalized by lawmakers in the coming weeks.

Davis is optimistic it will come to fruition.

“This particular study committee looks at two sides of the healthcare market equation: the supply side, which is expanding the number of providers and what they’re able to do, and the demand side, which is empowering patients,” he said.

More than a dozen potential reforms could be on the table for its recommendation, including facilitating the expansion of telemedicine, ensuring cost transparency, and eliminating requirements for collaboration between different health professions.

Also among them would be making South Carolina the 41st state to expand Medicaid eligibility.

Davis said this committee would not necessarily be for or against this expansion, but he believes discussing it is a necessary part of any conversation on improving healthcare.

“It’s important that we go ahead and have an open mind on everything, that we put all the facts on the table and have an honest discussion. We owe that to the people of South Carolina,” he said.

A study released earlier this year by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates more than 100,000 uninsured South Carolinians would become eligible if the state expanded Medicaid coverage.

“I’m under no delusions that this means it’s going to happen. But I would be so grateful if we can do a real look at all aspects of how we provide healthcare in South Carolina and how we can do better by people,” Sue Berkowitz with South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center said.

A potential Medicaid expansion would either need to gain the governor’s support to be signed into law or garner widespread enough backing in the Republican-dominated legislature to overcome a veto.

Gov. Henry McMaster has long opposed Medicaid expansion and believes studying the issue is unnecessary, according to spokesman Brandon Charochak.

“Rather than obligating future generations of South Carolina taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs, the state’s emphasis should be on reducing poverty and expanding prosperity, thereby reducing the need for Medicaid assistance,” Charochak said in a statement.

If the committee’s formation is included in the final version of the budget, its recommendations would be submitted by Dec. 1, so the legislature could consider them when it returns for the start of its next regular legislative session in January.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster on Tuesday signed into law a gender-affirming healthcare ban for transgender minors.

House Bill (HB) 4624, known as the Help Not Harm bill, prohibits physicians, mental health providers and other healthcare professionals from “knowingly” providing gender-transition procedures to individuals under eighteen years of age. HB 4624 defines “gender transition procedures” as puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones or gender reassignment surgery “provided or performed for the purpose of assisting an individual with a physical gender transition.”

Healthcare professionals can continue to temporarily provide hormone treatments and puberty blockers to minors who are prescribed such treatment before August 1, 2024. The professional must determine and document that immediate termination of the treatment “would cause harm” to that individual, and the period for continued treatment must end by January 31, 2025.

The law further requires schools to notify the parents or guardians of minor students if the child has told a school employee that their gender is “inconsistent with” their sex or asks a school employee to address them by “a pronoun or title that does not align with the minor’s sex.”

House Representative Sylleste Davis stated in January that HB 4624 protects children by “ensuring they are not exposed to irreversible medical procedures at an age when they are most vulnerable.” McMaster offered a similar sentiment in January, stating the bill was “a good idea to keep our young people healthy and safe.”

Critics of HB 4624, however, emphasize the harm that the law will impose on transgender youth. Director of Communications for the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network Kelli Parker stated, “Rather than prioritizing the real issues facing South Carolinians, our lawmakers shamefully chose to promote hate, fear, and discrimination under the guise of ‘protecting kids.’” Parker added, “Laws that block essential healthcare violate human rights and are a major setback for equality.”

The ACLU of South Carolina announced its opposition to the bill earlier this year, stating that gender-affirming care “is a best practice backed by scientific evidence and endorsed by leading medical organizations.” The organization also noted that such care is “life-saving” and “is the only effective treatment for trans youth to prevent self-harm and suicidal ideation.”

Critics have further emphasized that doctors and patients testified before the legislative committees that gender-transition surgeries are currently unavailable to minors in South Carolina and that patients can only begin hormone treatments after “extensive consultation with health professionals” and the consent of parents or legal guardians.

South Carolina is now the 25th state to restrict or ban gender-affirming treatment for minors. Similar legislation has been introduced in states such as West Virginia, Ohio, and Louisiana in the past few years, representing a spike in legislation that targets the LGBTQ+ community. Last month, the US Supreme Court allowed a gender-affirming care ban for minors in Idaho to go into effect, while the governor of Kansas vetoed a state ban on such care.

The ACLU is currently tracking 515 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the US. Other types of bills targeting LGBTQ+ youth include policies that restrict personal pronoun usage in schools, prohibit transgender athletes from participating on sports teams that do not correspond with their sex assigned at birth, and limit transgender students’ access to bathrooms that align with their gender identity.