Opinion: Georgia, let’s do bipartisan work and expand Medicaid

These days, it’s easy for politics to make you cynical.

Especially in this hyperpolarized era, during an election year, in the heart of the No. 1 battleground state in the nation, it does seem at times like partisan views have become calcified beyond change, or that ideology holds sway over substance and fact.

And so it is with no small amount of wonder and optimism that I say this this: I believe that in 2024, Georgia can finally expand Medicaid.

State Rep. Michelle Au, M.D.

I am a member of the Georgia House of Representatives. But outside of that, I am a practicing physician in metro Atlanta. And in both jobs, my responsibility is to solve complex problems and to deal in the currency of data and facts.

Here are the facts about the state of healthcare in Georgia.

• Georgia has the second-highest rate in the United States of residents not covered by public or private health insurance. This amounts to more than a million Georgians.
• Concomitantly, Georgia has ranked at or near the worst in the nation when it comes to a variety of health metrics, including access to care.
• The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, offers states the option to expand coverage to low income residents earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level to gain access to Medicaid coverage they are not currently eligible to receive. This federal program, which Georgia is already paying for but not receiving, would extend coverage to approximately half a million Georgians who currently have no health insurance coverage.
• Continuing on our current non-expansion path is not only costly for the state, it hurts lives, families and economic growth. Georgia has opted for a very limited extension of its Medicaid program, dubbed “Pathways to Coverage.” This program, it’s fair to say, has underperformed, while costing far more in state funds than traditional full Medicaid expansion would. It has also coincided with a catastrophically underresourced effort to redetermine the eligibility of Georgians already on Medicaid, resulting in a loss of coverage for hundreds of thousands of Georgians at the end of last year, the majority of whom are children.

Those are the facts. But now here is what I believe.

I think it’s clear that both parties prioritize increasing healthcare access as a key goal this legislative session.

I think my colleagues in the state legislature are good, moral people who, above all, want to serve and protect those we’ve been elected to represent.

I think we are bigger than partisanship and ideology.

I think that views can evolve and we can learn from the past and change.

And I think good people on both sides of the aisle should be given the grace to change their minds, and tailor solutions for this state that get as close to doing the most good possible for the greatest number of people as we can.

Earlier this month, I chaired a committee hearing at the state Capitol to evaluate Georgia’s healthcare coverage options, with a focus on full Medicaid expansion under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. We were able to secure a superb lineup of expert speakers, who each were able to give a bipartisan, practical, fiscally prudent, morally urgent argument to avail ourselves of the healthcare coverage options right at our fingertips.

This was testimony from hospital leaders and business owners, from clinicians and patients and health policy experts around the state, all for whom the idea of Medicaid expansion has long ceased to feel like a partisan choice. It’s simply the clearest, the most established, clearly ethical choice.

Or as more than one speaker put it, “It’s a no-brainer.”

All we have to do is say yes.