Week 9: What the House Budget Means for Health Care in Georgia
Last Tuesday, the Georgia House of Representatives passed its version of the Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) state budget. The FY27 budget funds the state from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027. The House version builds on the Governor’s recommendations with significant new investments in Medicaid provider rates, graduate medical education, maternal and child health, and public health infrastructure.
Here is what the House version means for health care and the programs Georgians rely on:
The Big Picture
The House’s most notable health care addition is a package of 14 Medicaid provider rate increases totaling approximately $45.8 million in state funds. The House budget also makes substantial investments in graduate medical education and health care workforce initiatives ($16+ million beyond the Governor), expands maternal home visiting from 21 to 62 counties, and adds new funding for rural hospital stabilization.
Medicaid Provider Rate Increases
The House added a series of Medicaid rate increases that were not part of the Governor’s recommendations. These increases would apply to the Aged, Blind, and Disabled (ABD) population, Low-Income Medicaid, and, in some cases, PeachCare.
The largest investments include:
Dental reimbursement: approximately $11.9 million in state funds (has paid dentists less than their true cost for years)
Autism services: $8.6 million
Primary care: approximately $7.7 million for two codes
Psychiatric residential treatment: approximately $3.9 million (an $800-per-day increase)
Smaller increases cover Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), air ambulance, heart and lung transplants, Elderly and Disabled Waiver case management, Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, & Supplies, and dietitian reimbursement.
Why This Matters
When Medicaid pays providers too little, doctors and dentists limit the number of Medicaid patients they will see (or in some cases, they won’t see Medicaid patients at all). These rate increases help ensure Georgians with Medicaid can find providers who will see them.
Graduate Medical Education and Healthcare Workforce
The House made a major investment in training Georgia’s next generation of health care providers, adding approximately $16 million beyond the Governor’s recommendation. The centerpiece is an expansion from the Governor’s 105 new primary care residency slots to 147, plus $4 million each for a pediatric residency at the Mercer University School of Medicine and for the Phoebe Health-Morehouse School of Medicine Consortium to establish a GME program in South Georgia.
Maternal and Child Health
The House expanded the maternal home visiting program to 62 additional counties, nearly tripling the Governor’s proposed 21-county expansion. The House investment is $6.98 million in state funds (compared to $2 million from the Governor). Home visiting programs connect pregnant women and new parents with trained professionals who provide health education, breastfeeding support, and developmental screening. These programs have some of the strongest evidence bases of any maternal health intervention. This is a GHF priority!
Insurance and the Marketplace
The House annualized the $25 million reduction to the state’s share of the 1332 waiver reinsurance funding, as first introduced in the Amended FY2026 budget.
The reinsurance program stabilizes premiums on Georgia’s individual insurance market, and this cut comes at a particularly precarious moment. The state is simultaneously shifting reinsurance funding away from general appropriations and toward fees paid by insurers participating in Georgia Access. This shift makes the reinsurance program’s funding more closely tied to marketplace enrollment levels. If Georgia Access enrollment drops due to the loss of enhanced premium tax credits (ePTCs), insurer fees will decline, and the revenue supporting reinsurance would shrink. A decrease in reinsurance funding could affect Georgia’s ability to stabilize and lower premiums for Georgia Access enrollees.
State Health Benefit Plan
The House set the State Health Benefit Plan per-member per-month (PMPM) rate at $1,935, a $50 increase over the current rate. This rate is substantially lower than the Governor’s proposed $2,028, which would have been a $143 increase. The SHBP covers state employees, public school employees, and retirees. The House approach keeps premium costs lower for the state and for school systems that fund a share of employee premiums.
Health Care Access and Rural Health
The House adds several new investments in health care infrastructure, including $3 million for rural hospital stabilization grants to allow hospitals designated as rural Emergency Hospitals to qualify for Georgia’s Rural Hospital Tax Credit and $2 million to establish a hospital solvency evaluation and one-time support structure focused on addressing root causes of revenue problems for financially at-risk hospitals. The House also adds $916,000 to fund colorectal cancer screening for over 1,500 Georgians without insurance, ages 45-64. However, without health insurance, those with abnormal initial screening results would have to cover the high costs of additional screening and treatment themselves.
Behavioral Health
The House doubles the Governor’s proposed NOW/COMP waiver slots from 100 to 200, investing $4.6 million in state funds. These waivers allow individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to receive services in community settings rather than institutions. Georgia’s Intellectual and Developmental Disability (IDD) waiver waitlist exceeds 7,000 individuals, so while 200 slots are a meaningful increase, it addresses only a fraction of the need.
Another significant investment within the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD)’s budget is $9.3 million for 404 new housing vouchers for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), which matches the Governor’s recommendation. These additional housing vouchers were a requirement of Georgia’s release from the 2010 DOJ settlement over Georgia’s illegal institutionalization of people with SMI. This is a GHF priority!
What Comes Next
The Senate will now take up HB 974 and make its own changes. Key items to watch include whether the Senate maintains, reduces, or adds to the House’s Medicaid rate package; how the Senate approaches graduate medical education; whether the maternal home visiting expansion holds at 62 counties; the Senate’s position on reinsurance funding and the SHBP per-member-per-month rate; and whether additional investments in behavioral health infrastructure emerge as they did in the AY 2026 process.
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Advocate With Us At The Capitol!
Join These Advocacy Events During the Legislative Session
Each week during the legislative session, we’re happy to highlight legislative advocacy days hosted by our partner organizations. These events offer excellent opportunities to engage in lawmaking by meeting your legislators and advocating for critical health issues.
We don’t have any events to share this week. Please contact Anthony Hill at ahill@healthyfuturega.org if you have an advocacy event you’d like included in GHF’s legislative update.
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Stay up-to-date with the legislative session.
GHF monitors legislative activity on many critical consumer health care topics. Along with our weekly legislative updates and timely analysis of bills, here are tools to help you stay in touch with health policy under the Gold Dome.
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