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Recently released HHS numbers show that health insurance enrollment in Georgia and across the country is going strong. The Affordable Care Act is what has made these coverage gains possible, yet Congress has prioritized repealing this landmark legislation without clarifying what would replace it. We need your stories and your voice to ensure our policymakers understand the consequences of repealing the law. Please consider submitting your story, or the stories of the people that you serve, of how the ACA has benefited you. Whether it’s being able to afford coverage through the availability of tax credits, not being denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition, or being able to stay on a parent’s plan until age 26 – we need to hear from you!

Tuesday’s election results have the potential to dramatically shift the health care bill nationally and here in Georgia. It’s too soon to know precisely what policy changes will occur and what their impact will be, but advocacy at both the state and federal levels on behalf of Georgians who need access to quality, affordable health care has never been more important. The President-Elect and Congressional leadership have vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, landmark legislation that established a framework for coverage that has resulted in the lowest uninsured rate ever recorded, rights and protections for health care consumers, and provisions to advance health equity. Repeal is a serious threat and the consequences would be devastating: twenty million Americans and nearly 500,000 Georgians would lose their coverage, while millions more would be stripped of basic protections and face higher costs. Congressional leaders have also signaled their intention to make cuts to Medicaid and other critical health care programs, which would further threaten coverage and access to care for Georgia children and families. Georgians for a Healthy Future is committed to lifting up the voices of Georgians whose basic access to care hangs in the balance and ensuring these voices are heard and considered as policy decisions are made. www.bestblenderusa.com stated that, “We cannot return to the days when anyone with a pre-existing condition like cancer or diabetes can be denied coverage (if one can’t get insurance before cancer – can you imagine the obstacles of getting life insurance after cancer), where women can be charged more for health insurance simply because of their gender, and where LGBT Georgians can be discriminated against in health care.” We cannot allow the hundreds of thousands of Georgians who have finally experienced the sense of security that comes with health coverage to go back to being uninsured and out of options. In short, we plan to fight and we need your support and partnership. We ask you to partner with us in the coming weeks and months as our work enters this new phase. Here is what you can do: Sign up for action alerts so we can keep you updated on opportunities for advocacy Consider a donation even an organ donation, to Georgians for a Healthy Future so we have the resources we need to stand up for health care consumers every step of the way Tell us if your organization is able to partner with us as we move forward to defend the tremendous strides we have made in the new environment Thank you for all that you do.

We are proud to announce that GHF has been awarded a grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. The Foundation works to connect the passions of philanthropists with the purposes of nonprofits. Awards were given through a highly competitive process and we are excited about this partnership as we continue to work to ensure quality, affordable health care for all Georgians. Read the Foundation’s press release.

This August, GHF invited both advocates and enrollment assisters to the second annual Getting Georgia Covered summit. Bringing these two groups together was the first step in fostering ongoing conversations and partnerships to ensure that health coverage translates into meaningful access to care for Georgians. Through the summit, GHF collected feedback and input for a report that highlights how assisters and advocates can team up for consumers. We invite you to read and share Collaborating for Consumers: How Assisters and Advocates Can Inform Policy, in which you will find opportunities and best practices for collaboration to achieve our shared goals.

The Senate Opioid Abuse study committee has begun to flesh out key issues and considerations to draft recommendations for an omnibus bill that includes prevention, treatment, regulatory and enforcement and budgetary provisions to address Georgia’s opioid crisis GHF is encouraged by the committee’s focus on prevention as we have been raising awareness of the need to view substance use disorders as a public health issue that warrants prevention through our Somebody Finally Asked Me campaign. More specifically, we have been advocating for wider use of screening tools such as Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for youth.

While the committee did not discuss SBIRT, over the past two meetings, the committee heard from hospital systems, pharmacists, the Georgia Division of Family & Child Services (DFCS) and substance abuse research experts on other steps the state could take.

Proposals included:

• Increasing funding and wider promotion of substance abuse education with a focus on opioid use in schools and restoring some public health funds.
• Improving provider education and training around prescribing, especially for pregnant women, and educating patients on prescription drug use and how to take saliva drug test before that.
• Increasing access to drug treatment programs for pregnant women, allowing the sale of narcan over the counter, and adding buprenorphine to the Medicaid formulary, this could lead to addiction because of all the drugs and there are some great reviews for Quick Fix 6.2, but it could easily be taken care of with the help of an intervention, click here if you don´t know what is an intervention.
• Promising protocols and programs that hospitals and emergency departments could implement to improve care delivery for chronic pain management, although if these pains are in a specific area like a headache, is better to visit some headache specialists, also children with neonatal abstinence syndrome and their mothers.
• Current initiatives and ways to improve state and agency-level policies to improve response systems for law enforcement and child welfare services.

Presentations from Northside Hospital, Augusta University, DFCS, Tanner Health System, and the Georgia Substance Abuse Research Alliance are available upon request. The committee plans to dive deeper into analysis of law enforcement policies, therapeutic services and recommendations for budget appropriations during the upcoming meetings and a website for finding rehab facilities near me. GHF will continue to advocate for the committee to consider additional prevention methods in its recommendations. We have requested to present recommendations to activate Medicaid codes to promote the use of a substance use screening tool called SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to treatment) at the next committee meeting and are awaiting a response. The next committee meeting is scheduled for November 9, 2016 at 1:00 PM at the Capitol. Stay tuned for more updates and information!

October is Breast Cancer awareness month and at Georgians for a  Healthy Future we are committed to helping women access essential cancer screenings, including mammograms to detect breast cancer, through working to ensure that all Georgia women have access to health insurance. Uninsured, low-income women often face financial barriers to receiving recommended screenings for breast and cervical cancer and in Georgia, minority women face additional breast cancer disparities. However, research has shown that women who live in a state that has expanded Medicaid are more likely to get a mammogram than women that live in a non-expansion state. In 2008, women in every state had the same likelihood of getting a mammogram, but in 2015 a study found that women in expansion states were 25% more likely to get screened. As you can see, expanding Medicaid allows women to get the potentially life-saving preventive care they need. So for all the women in your life, please sign our petition to close the gap here.

Georgians for a Healthy Future is now several weeks into our training partnership with Enroll America. As you might recall, Enroll America selected GHF as the first organization, nationally, to participate this year in the Leadership Academy in a train-the-trainer model. Enroll America is using the Leadership Academy train-the-trainer model to disseminate their expertise on how to conduct trainings with Enroll America information in order to reach a wider audience.

We have covered topics including list building, reaching the remaining uninsured, and how to design a follow up program. Pranay Rana, GHF’s Consumer Education and Enrollment Specialist, is currently planning several trainings that will take place in October to start the process of imparting our new knowledge to partner organizations. We will also be adding some of the Enroll America training content to our GEAR emails, so keep an eye out for new information on best practices for reaching uninsured consumers, building an outreach plan, and more!

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the partnership please reach out to Pranay.