Del. Sam Rasoul hosts town hall meeting on General Assembly 2018 session

ROANOKE, Va.- – Delegate Sam Rasoul Gave a quick update on the 2018 legislative session at the Roanoke Higher Education Center. 

Among the hot topics discussed includes the building of the mountain valley pipeline, Medicaid expansion and gun control. Devan Adkins came to the town hall with her social welfare class at Radford University.

Currently working in the mental health field, she wants lawmakers to continue expanding Medicaid services with a focus on mental health. A bipartisan effort in the House of Delegates passed Medicaid expansion, giving 400,000 people in Virginia access to healthcare. 

"A lot of issues with the patients that are in the community as opposed to institutionalized is that they are having a lot of trouble getting Medicaid pay to cover all of their services fully," said Rasoul. 

Darius Smith said he wants a better gun control system, including tracking of firearms. 

"I do think we need to improve upon those and actually have some empirical data in terms of knowing who owns the guns what kind of guns, they own and, if applicable, where those guns are purchased so that we can trace it back to the source," said Smith.

The general assembly will head back to Richmond next week for a special session to start considering the budget by July 1.