Sep 12, 2025 ATLANTA — Health-care advocates warned Thursday that Georgia residents who have to find their own insurance in the government marketplace should expect significant rate increases next year. Insurance companies are filing rate increase requests with regulators, arguing that federal budget cuts and the end of COVID-19 tax credits are the main drivers, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA. “These are individual workers and working families who simply don’t get coverage on the job or through public programs like Medicaid or Medicare,” Wright said. Wright said affected workers include retail and restaurant employees, ride-hail and food-delivery drivers, beauticians, barbers, plumbers and other self-employed workers. Georgia’s government marketplace is called Georgia Access. The state also offers Pathways to Coverage for those nearer the poverty level. The group KFF calculates that a half million Georgians could lose coverage. Another group, Georgians for a Healthy Future (GHF), puts that number at 340,000, estimating an average rate increase of 75%. “If costs soar and coverage slips away, the consequences will ripple through every part of our state at almost every income level,” said Whitney Griggs, health policy director for GHF. Georgia’s Office of Insurance was not immediately available to clarify the numbers, but it will not be long before insurance shoppers see the result, with enrollment for 2026 likely to start around November.

Aug 14, 2025

Georgia residents could see as much as a 40% increase in their health insurance premiums if Congress does not act to extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said at a press conference Thursday.

Ossoff, a Democrat, said he is urging congressional Republicans to “reverse course” on allowing the credits — which help subsidize ACA health care premiums for low-income and middle class families — to expire. Currently, families with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty line are eligible for the credits, which comes out to $62,600 for a single-person household and $128,600 for a household of four.

The credits were first introduced in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, and are associated with record high ACA enrollment levels. In Georgia, 96% of enrollees use advanced premium tax credits to cover some or all of their health care costs. Georgia’s state insurance marketplace, known as Georgia Access, is the second-largest in the country after California.

“The enhanced premium tax credits have allowed Georgia Access to be so successful, and they have allowed hundreds of thousands of Georgians to get coverage for the first time,” said Whitney Griggs, the director of health policy at Georgians for a Healthy Future, a patient advocacy group.

 

Aug 11, 2025

The passage of the reconciliation package known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” means that many Georgians—particularly those who rely on social safety nets like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid—could face hardship in the coming years.

To prepare for these challenges, an understanding of the contents of the bill is essential.

“This law essentially makes deep cuts to programs that are the foundation of health, food security, and economic stability for hundreds of thousands of Georgians,” says Anthony Hill, Strategic Communications Manager at Georgians for a Healthy Future. “It’s easy to talk about these programs in terms of numbers and budgets, but behind every number is a family. So, at the core of this conversation are those families and what we can do to protect their health and their dignity at a time when the programs that they depend on are at risk.”…

Sweeping Changes to Georgia’s Affordable Care Act Marketplace—Whitney Griggs, Director of Health Policy, Georgians for a Healthy Future

Griggs sets the scene by explaining the current state of Georgia Access, our state’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace: “Georgia has the second largest state-based marketplace in the country. This year over 1.5 million Georgians enrolled in health insurance through Georgia Access. Over 90% of those enrollees receive financial assistance to help lower the cost of their monthly premiums and since 2022, there have been additional enhanced tax credits in place to help lower those monthly premiums even further. And many Georgians have fully subsidized coverage, so they’re paying nothing for their health insurance at the moment.”

Here are the changes Griggs predicts:

• The enhanced premium tax credits that allow people with low incomes to qualify for fully subsidized health coverage will expire at the end of the year. That will mean premium increases for many.
• More people will fall into the gap between Medicaid (they’ll earn too much to qualify) and the ACA marketplace (they’ll earn too little to afford premiums) and become uninsured.
• Reduced funds for Georgia’s reinsurance program, “which is essentially insurance for insurers,” Griggs says, could endanger the stability of the marketplace overall.
• The end of auto-renewals for those who qualify for tax credits could create administrative burdens and prevent more Georgia families from getting health coverage.

Aug 4, 2025

Now that Republicans’ big tax-and-spending bill has become law, there will be new bureaucratic hurdles for millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for health coverage. The new law contains a provision that in most states, for the first time, low-income adults will have to start meeting work requirements to keep their coverage.

Some states have already tried this, but Georgia is the only state that currently has an active system using work requirements to establish Medicaid eligibility — and recipients must report to the system once a month…

Jul 28, 2025

Now that Republicans’ big tax-and-spending bill has become law, there will be new bureaucratic hurdles for millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for health coverage. The new law contains a provision that in most states, for the first time, low-income adults will have to start meeting work requirements to keep their coverage.

Some states have already tried this, but Georgia is the only state that currently has an active system using work requirements to establish Medicaid eligibility — and recipients must report to the system once a month…

Jul 16, 2025

Now that Republicans’ big tax-and-spending bill has become law, there will be new bureaucratic hurdles for millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid for health coverage. The new law contains a provision that in most states, for the first time, low-income adults will have to start meeting work requirements to keep their coverage.

Some states have already tried this, but Georgia is the only state that currently has an active system using work requirements to establish Medicaid eligibility — and recipients must report to the system once a month…

Jul 11, 2025

As the dust settles in the wake of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” — the massive spending cut and tax break package signed into law early this month — it’s becoming clearer that Georgia’s health care landscape may look dramatically different in 2026.

Health insurers, providers and advocates alike are bracing for the impact that the federal budget reconciliation bill will have on health care access throughout the state over the next decade. The bill’s sweeping Medicaid cuts are expected to reduce federal health care funding in Georgia by $2.29 billion, according to data from the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF.

Health care advocates worry that the higher premiums will result in fewer Georgia residents obtaining coverage, with some families being priced out of the health insurance market entirely. Georgia already has one of the highest uninsured rates in the country.

“Because Georgia has not expanded Medicaid, we have more low-income individuals enrolled in the marketplace or Georgia Access than most states,” said Whitney Griggs, the director of health policy at Georgians for a Healthy Future, a patient advocacy group. “Those folks are going to feel the pain of these premium increases the most.”

Though certain parts of the budget reconciliation bill likely won’t impact taxpayers until 2027 or beyond, higher insurance premiums may debut as soon as January 2026.

Jul 11, 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.

Jun 30, 2025

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.”

Jun 23, 2025

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.