The top Democrat in the state House this week filed legislation to expand Georgia's Medicaid program, and while state Rep. Stacey Abrams knows its a long shot, she said it's time the discussion advances.
Abrams, of Atlanta, filed House Bill 823, the Expand Medicaid Now Act.
“This is the right year to raise awareness and to put in position a bill that can be acted on,” Abrams said. “We are going to see more and more hospitals on the verge of closing, and that is directly related to our refusal to expand Medicaid.”
The Georgia Hospital Association reports that in 2013, more than half of Georgia's rural hospitals lost money.
Abrams said expanding Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act would provide health insurance to nearly 500,000 Georgians by raising the income threshold for Medicaid and expanding subsidies for coverage. Republican lawmakers and Gov. Nathan Deal have said expanding the program is financially imprudent and have explored other solutions to the state’s health care crisis.
As part of her push, Abrams has also created a website, www.expandmedicaidga.com, where Georgians can sign a petition to urge lawmakers to expand the federal health care program.
“A major part of refusing to expand Medicaid, I think, is a sense that politically it’s unpalatable,” Abrams said. “The goal is for us to show that this is not a partisan issue, that Republicans and Democrats and independents get sick, that they live in communities where their hospitals are in jeopardy and that they want the jobs that will come with Medicaid expansion.”
The effort comes just days after state Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, called Medicaid expansion "inevitable."
"I can show you a map that shows you, in certain counties, the only people in the medical field are marriage and family therapists," Millar told Georgia Public Broadcasting.
“But access is a big problem,” he said. “And I believe we will expand Medicaid. I don’t know when.”
Millar said “aloud what many people know,” Abrams said.
That is, she said, “we are at a crisis stage and that under federal law there is a very limited way to access the resources we need.”
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