Georgia Democrats clung to hope Wednesday that there was still time to enact desperately needed full Medicaid expansion this year before the latest 40-day legislative session comes to an end Thursday.
State Democratic Party leaders, including House Minority Leader James Beverly, D-Macon, and Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain, issued a desperate plea for their Republican colleagues to help pass related legislation, including a measure known as the Peach Care Plus Act. But while it’s still technically possible, the state’s annual lawmaking deadline, known as Sine Die, is only hours away with no indication that the state legislature’s ruling party would move the bill forward.
The bill would allow thousands of qualifying Georgians living near or below the poverty line to gain private health insurance access through a newly created state-based program.
James and Butler said thousands of Georgians, many of them Black, can’t afford to go another year without health insurance coverage. Black people represent 41% of the estimated 290,000 uninsured Georgians who don’t qualify for Medicaid under the state’s current stringent guidelines, according to the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute.
“Our duty to the people is to get this done,” Butler said. If that doesn’t happen, it means those people, and potentially more, will have to wait another year for potential relief on health care costs.
Beverly noted that Black folks make up a disproportionate share of the estimated 1.4 million Georgians who don’t have health insurance. The state had the third-highest rate of uninsured people in the nation last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by Forbes, which dubbed Georgia the worst state for health care in 2023.
“If they get sick, break or bone, or even just need a basic course of antibiotics for an infection, they face staggering, often crippling medical costs,” Beverly said.
Republicans, including House Speaker Jon Burns, signaled in November that they were open to expanding Medicaid, a longtime goal for Democrats concerned about hospital closures across the state and lack of coverage for thousands of Georgia residents.
Democrats’ hopes were all but completely dashed in late February when leaders, Burns backed off the idea and instead signaled support for Gov. Brian Kemp’s limited Medicaid program, Georgia Pathways to Coverage.
Burns also issued a statement saying he was “100% supportive” of Georgia Pathways. Kemp launched the program last July, roughly four months after state officials began redetermining the eligibility of Georgia Medicaid recipients following the official end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
An estimated 597,000 people, including at least 149,000 children, have lost Medicaid coverage since April, according to GBPI. Fewer than 2,400 people signed up for Georgia Pathways between April and Dec. 15, according to the Georgia Department of Community Health.
Senate Democrats responded to Republicans’ reversal on Medicaid expansion by introducing the Peach Care Plus Act. GOP members of the Senate’s Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee narrowly blocked that measure on March 21.
Sen. Bill Cowsert, a Republican representing Athens who also serves as chair of the committee, issued the tie-breaking vote against Peach Care Plus. He and Sen. Ben Watson said they want to give Kemp and Georgia Pathways more time to work.
Cowsert and Watson couldn’t be reached for comment.
“My feeling is we need to support our governor and his approach and let’s give it a chance to work,” Cowsert said during the March 21 hearing, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. “If it fails, then we’ll be back in here next year talking about other alternatives.”
Kemp’s office said Democrats should “stop undermining Georgia Pathways” if they want more people to have Medicaid coverage without kicking others off private insurance.
But Democrats say Georgians have waited long enough for full Medicaid expansion. Republicans in control of state government, who ideologically oppose expanding entitlement programs, have blocked Medicaid’s expansion ever since the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, was enacted in 2010.
Georgia is one of only 10 states that still doesn’t have Medicaid expansion as a result.
Rep. Michelle Au said the “failure” of Georgia Pathways doesn’t justify Kemp and his allies halting Medicaid expansion.
“When ego is what is standing in the way of doing the right thing, then you may have bigger problems,” she said.
