Morning, y’all! Full moon tonight. Not just any full moon, but a full blood worm moon total lunar eclipse! Say that five times fast. Let’s get to it.
HOW MEDICAID COSTS COULD AFFECT GEORGIANS
Credit: iStock/Getty Images Plus
Credit: iStock/Getty Images Plus
Republican legislators and members of President Donald Trump’s administration are considering various ways to cut Medicaid, the need-based health insurance program jointly funded by states and the federal government.
If these cuts do come, they could affect 2 million Georgians. The latest round of data from the Kaiser Family Foundation is stark:
- 12% of Medicaid recipients in Georgia are children enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
- 72% of Georgia seniors in nursing homes are covered by Medicaid.
- 24% of Americans, or about 80 million people, are insured through Medicaid nationwide. In some congressional districts in the Southeast, that number is closer to 30%, and in some parts of Louisiana, even reaches 50%.
- 80% of children living below the poverty line in the U.S. are insured by Medicaid.
Compounding costs: Republican leaders eager to cut costs say Medicaid isn’t sustainable and should be a priority for the Department of Government Efficiency’s scythe. The cost of operating Medicaid will only increase as the population of older Americans grows.
What Georgia’s leaders are saying: Legislators from both sides of the aisle are actually trying to expand Medicaid in Georgia. Gov. Brian Kemp wants to seek federal approval to allow parents and legal guardians of young children to quality. State Sen. Sally Harrell, D-Atlanta, wants to include caregivers of older adults.
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NEW PROCESSED FOOD STUDY
Credit: Tony Gutierrez/AP
Credit: Tony Gutierrez/AP
The National Institutes of Health is working on a widely anticipated study aimed at understanding the health effects of ultraprocessed foods.
🌭 In a way, it’s exactly what it sounds like. A food is “processed” when it’s frozen, ground up, fermented, pasteurized or changed in some other means.
🍟 Food scientists use a scale to determine how processed something is. A food that’s “ultraprocessed” may have additives like colors and preservatives.
🧁 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s new health secretary, wants to take on “highly chemically processed foods,” which he says lead to a host of chronic health conditions.
That’s true in many ways, since ultraprocessed foods are often high in fat, sodium and sugar and contain additives. But the question is whether or not it’s the processing that causes the possible health detriments, or the ingredients themselves.
By monitoring people’s food intake 24/7 for four weeks, NIH researchers hope to get more answers.
🔎 READ MORE: Inside the government study on ultraprocessed foods
SANCTUARY CITY CONFUSION
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
The Small Business Administration, led by new SBA Administrator and Atlanta resident Kelly Loeffler, says it wants to move six of its offices out of cities it considered “sanctuary cities.” That includes one in Atlanta.
The problem? Atlanta isn’t a sanctuary city.
- “Sanctuary cities” don’t meet a single description, but typically have policies that limit the scope of federal immigration enforcement actions.
- It’s legally impossible for Atlanta to be a sanctuary city, since Georgia law bans cities and counties from adopting a sanctuary policy and has for 15 years.
- Loeffler hasn’t specified why her agency considers Atlanta a sanctuary city, or where the office will go — and if it will stay in Georgia at all.
The uncertainty about the Atlanta SBA office’s future is leaving local entrepreneurs and city leaders in the lurch, especially since business growth is a big part of Atlanta’s planned future.
🔎 READ MORE: How Atlanta business owners are responding to SBA uncertainty.
MORE BIG BUILDINGS ON THE WAY
Credit: Seeger Gray/AJC
Credit: Seeger Gray/AJC
What’s your flavor: big or tall? The Atlanta area has got a little bit of both coming its way in new building projects.
🏢 BIG: A massive $9.7 billion data center could be coming to LaGrange. It would be one of Troup County’s largest economic development projects to date and would take eight years to build. Other plans for sprawling data centers have been pitched in Barrow, Coweta, Newton and several other Georgia counties.
🏗️ TALL: A new student housing complex is going up downtown. Landmark Properties, the country’s largest student housing developer, is planning a 40-story Georgia Tech student housing center next to the famed Varsity just off the Downtown Connector. The spot was one of the most coveted pieces of land in Atlanta when Landmark snapped it up in November. It hopes to break ground on the facility next year.
THE MOST HIGH-TECH PACIFIER EVER
For most parents, a pacifier that also measures a baby’s electrolytes in real time probably sounds like a one-way ticket to Anxiety Acres. But researchers at Georgia Tech who have actually developed the device say it could change the future of neonatal care.
Advanced sensors on the pacifier can continuously analyze saliva and detect health issues.
Not only does that help with monitoring a baby’s health, it provides a painless alternative to the dreaded blood draws.
🔎 Read more about the technology here.
MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS
🗑️ The head of the Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back more environmental regulations. Lee Zeldin announced the agency will reconsider the reach of the nation’s bedrock clean water law, as well as rules pertaining to coal pollution, climate change and electric vehicles.
We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America's Golden Age.
✂️ Here’s a look at what government agencies have been affected by DOGE cuts. The Department of Veterans Affairs will be hit the hardest, with 80,000 planned job cuts.
💰 Canada will announce more than $20 billion in new tariffs on the U.S. in retaliation for Trump’s 25% steel and aluminum tariffs.
🚇 Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens will speak at a MARTA board meeting today amid claims, backed by records obtained by the AJC, that the city has intentionally delayed renovation permits for the Five Points MARTA station.
NEWS BITES
Ford shows off treasure trove of rarely seen vehicles to a select few at its HQ
Who wouldn’t think this was cool?!
March Madness selection panel has to deal with SEC overload in bracket
It Just Means More. 😎
Egg prices are still hitting records, but some relief should be here soon
It would be great if they went down around Easter. Feels thematically appropriate.
A “confidential, high-end” 10K-square-foot mystery restaurant is coming to the old CNN Center
Giant fancy Waffle House! I called it. You heard it here first.
ON THIS DATE
MARCH 13, 1913
Credit: File photo
Credit: File photo
From the front page of the Atlanta Journal: ... 84 preachers who met at Durand’s cafe at a dinner ... adopted resolutions condemning motion picture shows and baseball as Sunday recreations.
I don’t know, few things make me feel closer to God than a matinee game at Truist Park.
ONE MORE THING
I’ll be heading to Asheville for a few days. No stranger to the area, but if there’s a good hiking trail you like nearby let me know!
Also happy birthday to my husband Peter, the golden light of my life.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of A.M. ATL. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact us at AMATL@ajc.com.
Until next time.
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