Georgia Democratic leader says time has come for Medicaid expansion

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.”