Georgians on Medicaid Pathways program: Expand it and fix it

Kemp now wants to add another group: poor parents or legal guardians of young children.

Experts and activists have welcomed the move — for the potential new enrollees and also the children in their families who would benefit from having healthier parents. Those giving public comment Monday night agreed. But, they said, it is not enough.

“Georgia Pathways can often feel like an obstacle course,” said Sherrell Byrd, a southwest Georgia community activist with the organization Sowega Rising.

As of early this year, Georgia Pathways had just 6,500 enrollees. That’s a small fraction of its goals. Before it launched, Kemp aides said it could attract perhaps 90,000 enrollees.

While 40 other states have expanded coverage, Kemp is staying with his limited approach.

Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS

“I do support the changes that the Department of Community Health is proposing,” Byrd said. Those include eliminating Georgia’s requirement that Pathways enrollees reverify their eligibility under the work rules every month, and allowing poor parents or guardians of children 6 and younger to qualify the program.

Those changes “are steps in the right direction,” Byrd said. “However, these changes do not go far enough.”

Georgia and nine other conservative states have chosen to only insure certain groups of adults instead of all income-eligible adults. Kemp’s work and activity requirements are up for review later this year by the Trump administration, along with the new proposal of covering parents of children 6 and younger.

The Trump administration is not pushing for full expansion to all low-income adults. In fact, critics fear it is on track to make massive cuts to Medicaid, although the president has not yet outlined his plans.

Byrd and other speakers repeatedly pointed out the more than 200,000 low-income Georgians who still are not covered, and the large sums of money that have been spent on administrative costs for Pathways — an amount far larger than the medical costs. They asked for simpler rules for coverage, more community awareness outreach, personal help applying and a more functional Medicaid computer system.

Some speakers Monday said the state’s paperwork was itself a barrier for people on the edge, who might not have internet, who might not own computers, who might work several jobs or who might not have access to a car.

Shekniah Newby, a former college student, said she did not know Pathways existed when she was uninsured and in college. Studying at college can qualify some students for Pathways.

“Expanding Georgia’s Pathways to Coverage is a smart investment in education and workforce development,” said Katrena Felder, who works at a technical college. However, she said, some students there who should qualify for Pathways are unable to manage the process of applying because of untreated mental illness. They need the insurance to get that under control first, she said.

Tanisha Corporal testified virtually from metro Atlanta that she had applied to Pathways for herself and her college-aged son three times after she lost her full-time job. Her part-time community work should have made her eligible, she said she was told. Corporal also spoke with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a telephone interview after the hearing.

Sometimes she never heard back from the state after filing paperwork, she said. Sometimes she heard back that she was not eligible because she hadn’t submitted documents. She went in person to the Department of Family and Children Services, she said, where caseworkers and supervisors she hoped could solve her problem in person were not actually present.

A front office worker agreed that her mobile app showed she had submitted the documents, she said, and they encouraged her to appeal.

“Gateway (Georgia’s Medicaid portal) and the DFCS system is a nightmare,” Corporal testified. “Uploaded forms vanish, calls and emails go unanswered, and administrative office support is nonexistent.”

She said she can no longer see her regular doctors at Emory because she has unpaid bills, and has had to postpone a surgery she needs. She decided to testify after her son dislocated his finger in a basketball game at his new college and his first call was to her, asking whether they could afford for him to go to the hospital.

“Go,” she says she told him. “Just tell the registration staff you’re ‘indigent.’”

Representatives of the DCH were there to receive comment for the public hearing, not to respond. They declined to comment on the remarks. A spokesperson for Kemp also did not respond to questions.