Medicaid Not Expanded in Georgia Due to Politics, and Our Residents Suffer

“It is unconscionable for Governor Deal to stand in the way of the availability of health care… We are paying the overwhelming cost of this program already through our federal taxes… (Georgia resident’s) taxes will fund health care for people in…other states that have opted in.”-AJC reader Truman Moore (2-17-13) 

 Moore wrote responding to my 2013 AJC letter regarding Medicaid expansion (“Ideology in the Way of Creating Jobs”).  I had just completed terms as a fiscally conservative Republican County Commissioner in Jasper County. As Chair, I reduced annual tax increases from 10% to 1%.

Due to the GOP’s stance on social issues and abandonment of fiscal sanity, I have since become a Fayette County Democrat. I was also on the Georgia Democratic Party’s Platform Committee, advocating for Medicaid expansion and Medicare expansion.

When Governor Deal (a Republican, but former Democrat) was in office, he had the power to unilaterally expand Medicaid. He chose not to do so. Instead, Deal’s politically driven desire was to push the issue onto someone else. So, now General Assembly approval is needed.

Thus, Medicaid expansion remains stalled in Georgia’s political swamp- a political football used by GOP politicians to score points… while harming Georgia’s residents. Full expansion would have gone through years ago if not for Governor Kemp’s opposition… driven by his ego and political ambitions. Kemp created a disastrous Medicaid “waiver” program (Pathways) that he claimed would be an improvement versus the national program used by 40 other states. However, Pathways is a bureaucratic nightmare… and very expensive administratively.  

Pathways covers 16,782 Georgians– rather than the hundreds of thousands Kemp claimed would get coverage. Furthermore, instead of the Feds paying the full bill for 3 years and then 90% under normal expansion, Pathways is only 80% paid for by the Feds.Thus, federal tax money paid by Georgians is going to the 40 full expansion states.

In a 2014 letter published by the AJC, I stated- “Medicaid expansion, helping more poor people to get essential medical care, is a “no-brainer,” technically. The Feds pay 100 percent for 3 years. After that, the state only pays 10 percent of the cost, a great deal for any matching grant. In normal times, the Governor, who now has sole power to move on it, would have already approved it. But these are the days of the Tea Party.” The situation remains the same, except now the irrational ideologues are called MAGA.

Thus, Georgia is now one of only 10 states not to implement full Medicaid expansion. Therefore, our state has 1.2 million uninsured. An astounding 12% of residents have no coverage. 

That figure is much higher than the still unacceptable national rate of 10%. For families with income under 138% of the poverty line, the figure is much higher, over 35% in 11 counties, including big metro counties like Cobb and Gwinnett.

In conclusion,  Kemp will not acknowledge that he made a very big mistake, hurting his constituents-having 12% uninsured and not maximizing federal fund reimbursement. Therefore, over a decade later, Georgia still is one of the worst states for insurance coverage- only Texas has a higher percent uninsured.

 The explanation is simple technically… and solely political in nature. There is an old Winston Churchill saying, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

 Just how many times will our Governor and General Assembly go down this same disastrous road, unwilling because of MAGA politics to admit the obvious- the failure of Pathways?  

Health care insurance for all Georgians should be a goal of our Governor and General Assembly, regardless of party. The facts regarding Medicaid expansion are clear to anyone of either party who researches the issue. To our politicians- once and for all, bury your political ideology and do what is right for the residents of Georgia: full Medicaid expansion rather than Kemp’s disastrous Pathways failure.