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Georgians for a Healthy Future is frequently cited in news articles about health care issues, ensuring the consumer perspective is heard. Read news stories featuring Georgians for a Healthy Future’s perspective below.
2025
ATLANTA – When Congress passed President Donald Trump’s controversial budget bill July 3, Republicans and Democrats went to their corners to portray it either as the largest tax cut in U.S. history or a devastating gutting of the nation’s safety net.
But beyond the politics, Georgia health-care and clean-energy advocates warned that cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and food stamps, as well as the phasing out of clean-energy tax credits will hurt low- and middle-income Georgians in exchange for easing the tax burden on the wealthy who don’t need such government largesse.
State cutbacks to the ACA, Medicaid, and SNAP (the food stamps program) could be achieved by introducing more administrative requirements, they said, something the federal government is already imposing.
Identity “proofing” challenges with ACA “mean that many folks just won’t enroll because of administrative burdens,” said Whitney Griggs, director of health policy for Georgians for a Healthy Future.
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Georgia’s U.S. senators are joining a bipartisan push against President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget proposal, projected to be $153 billion.
More than 2 million Georgians rely on Medicaid, and according to estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation, as many as 200,000 people in the state could lose their Medicaid coverage or private insurance through Georgia Access almost immediately if the plan passes.
Whitney Griggs, of Georgians for a Healthy Future, echoed those concerns.
“Georgians will feel these impacts very quickly,” Griggs said. “And a lot more people than expected are going to lose coverage.”
Georgia health scorecard rank ties directly to policy and lack of affordable health care, group says
LISTEN: A new report from the Commonwealth Fund ranks Georgia’s health care system 45th overall in the nation. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge reports on the findings.
A new report from the Commonwealth Fund ranks Georgia’s health care system 45th overall in the nation.
The ranking looked at health care access, affordability and disease prevention, said Sara Collins, the senior scholar and vice president for health care coverage and access and tracking health system performance at The Commonwealth Fund.
The administrative burden is preventing people from enrolling and is leaving more people without access to health care, Whitney Griggs with Georgians for a Healthy Future said.
“Lots of folks who are eligible lose their coverage because they run into some sort of an administrative roadblock trying to submit their qualifying activity or prove their address or even just fill out the basic application,” Griggs said.
ATLANTA, GA — There are new concerns about how Georgia healthcare could be impacted by President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” budget bill.
A congressional budget office analysis estimates 624,000 Georgians could lose their healthcare coverage if the bill is passed by congress.
“It’s about increasing costs for private health insurance and making it harder to get through the enrollment process and renewal process for Medicaid.”
Laura Colbert with Georgians for a Healthy Future says the premium tax credit could also go away, increasing premiums for everyone.
The Senate must still vote on the bill.
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s experiment with a work requirement for Medicaid offers a test of a similar mandate Republicans in Congress want to implement nationally, and advocates say the results so far should serve as a warning.
Just days shy of its two-year anniversary, the Georgia Medicaid program is providing health coverage to about 7,500 low-income residents, up from 4,300 in the first year, but far fewer than the estimated 240,000 people who could qualify. The state had predicted at least 25,000 enrollees in the first year and nearly 50,000 in the second year.
“The data on the Pathways program speaks for itself,” said Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, an advocacy group that has called for a broader expansion of Medicaid without work requirements. “There are just so many hurdles at every step of the way that it’s just a really difficult program for people to enroll in and then to stay enrolled in too.”
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — More than 600,000 Georgians could lose their health insurance coverage by 2034 under federal legislation currently moving through Congress, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which President Donald Trump wants passed by July 4, would eliminate enhanced premium tax credits and impose new requirements on Medicaid recipients.
The CBO estimates 624,102 Georgians would lose coverage, including 530,675 people losing Affordable Care Act marketplace plans and 93,427 losing Medicaid coverage.
“These administrative changes are pretty seismic shifts that could cause huge coverage losses and really hurt Georgia’s healthcare safety net,” said Whitney Griggs, director of health policy at Georgians for a Healthy Future.
The legislation passed the House in May and now sits in the Senate, where lawmakers are expected to make changes before sending it back to the House for final approval.
Budget bill includes changes to Medicaid similar to Georgia’s ‘Pathways’ program
Georgia could soon become the poster child for administering Medicaid with work requirements — for better or worse.
As Congressional Republicans seek to pass a budget bill enacting President Donald Trump’s agenda, they’re looking to require able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work in order to receive their health care coverage. Georgia is presently the only state in the nation with work requirements for its Medicaid population…
Laura Colbert, the executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, said frequent checks are difficult and expensive. There is more churn within the system because people are often falling in and out of care.
MORE THAN 7 MILLION PEOPLE will become uninsured if Medicaid cuts in Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” become law, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And the single biggest reason for that would be new “work requirements” the legislation would impose on some Medicaid beneficiaries.
The Republicans say they are out to protect taxpayer resources, so that Medicaid isn’t subsidizing people who could be working but aren’t. They also say this is their way of “protecting Medicaid for the vulnerable”—that people who are engaged in productive activity will be able to stay on the program as long as they can prove it.
But one state is trying to do that now. It’s Georgia. And it hasn’t been going well.
DEANNA WILLIAMS, with Georgians for a Healthy Future who helps residents enroll in public health programs, told me she has seen this first-hand: “There are a lot of people who apply for the program who [worry] about meeting those hours because they have service jobs. If they are working at a restaurant, where their hours may fluctuate, or they are working in retail—during the holidays you may get more hours than normal, but during the regular season, you don’t get that many hours.”
As Congress continues to work to vote on a new budget, the Atlanta Community Food Bank said potential cuts could turn into a crisis with no answer.
Whitney Griggs wonders what the future of Medicaid could be in Georgia. Griggs is the director of health policy for Georgians for a Healthy Future. Lawmakers are considering slashing spending on Medicaid, and Griggs said that could prove disastrous just a year after more than one million Georgians had to confirm their Medicaid eligibility through the process known as unwinding.
“People just can’t go to the doctor because it’s too expensive or they can go to a community clinic, but if they’re sent somewhere else, they don’t have health insurance to pay for that,” Griggs said. “We did see a shrink in the number of Georgians enrolled in Medicaid. We also saw a lot of folks, especially kids, get kicked off their Medicaid and then go through the process of getting re-enrolled in Medicaid.”
While McKoon said Congress was focused on getting rid of duplication, waste, fraud, and abuse while keeping services intact, Griggs said cuts to Medicaid could result in mounting confusion, losses in coverage and even hospital closures due to financial strain.
Georgia’s Pathways program, which implemented a work requirement, could be replicated at the federal level. Since its inception in the last couple of years, Pathways only has about 7,000 participants statewide. But Griggs said such a program requires more education and opens up Georgians struggling to keep up with administrative demands to more risk.
“We’ll also see a huge strain on our safety net healthcare system,” Griggs said. “Our rural hospitals really depend on Medicaid to pay for the patients that they see. They also depend on the financing programs Congress is talking about capping in this proposal. Having to get through the system and stay enrolled and get enrolled is really challenging for folks. For years and years, folks heard they weren’t eligible. You close a door on someone enough times, they won’t come back again.”