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In The News

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.

2024

Preventive care is proactive care: Supporting youth mental health in Georgia

  • by Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta
  • Saporta Report
It’s an increasingly difficult time to be young in America. Mental health challenges among children and teens are skyrocketing, and Georgia is no exception. According to the CDC, in 2021, 42% of young people experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness—a figure that has doubled over the past decade. To move from awareness to action, here are some steps you can take to support youth mental health in Georgia. Whether you’re a parent, advocate, employer, or community member, your involvement can make a difference: Learn more: Explore child and adolescent youth mental health issues through organizations like Resilient GeorgiaStrong4Life of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (available in Spanish), and GEEARS: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students. Engage with legislators: Talk to your elected officials about supporting bold actions for mental health care in Georgia. Find your legislator to start the conversation. You can also join with policy leaders like Georgians for a Healthy Future.
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The first year of Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement is mired in red tape

  • by Renuka Rayasam and Sam Whitehead
  • The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

On a recent summer evening, Raymia Taylor wandered into a recreation center in a historical downtown neighborhood, the only enrollee to attend a nearly two-hour event for people who have signed up for Georgia’s experimental Medicaid expansion.

The state launched the program in July 2023, requiring participants to document that they’re working, studying, or doing other qualifying activities for 80 hours a month in exchange for health coverage. At the event, booths were set up to help people join the Marines or pursue a GED diploma.

“It’s not an easy, ‘Oh, I want to apply for Pathways,’” said Deanna Williams, who helps people enroll in insurance plans at Georgians for a Healthy Future, a consumer advocacy group. People generally learn about the program after being denied other Medicaid coverage, she said.

In the online application, people click through pages of questions before they’re shown a screen with information about Pathways, Williams said. Then they must check a box and sign a form saying they understand the program’s requirements. Sometimes the Pathways application doesn’t pop up, and she must start over. The process to apply is “not smooth,” she said.

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State launches ad campaign for Georgia Pathways Medicaid program

  • by Dave Williams
  • Capitol-Beat

The state agency that runs Georgia Medicaid is going all out to increase enrollment in Gov. Brian Kemp’s limited Medicaid expansion initiative beyond the paltry numbers who signed up during its first year.

The Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) launched a $10.7 million ad campaign this month to call attention to the Georgia Pathways program, complete with a new website (pathways.georgia.gov) that explains the initiative, who is eligible to sign up, and how to apply.

“We cheer the meaningful increases in private health insurance enrollment among Georgians,” said Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future. “But that does not resolve the larger issue at hand. Hundreds of thousands of Georgians remain uninsured and without meaningful access to health care until Georgia leaders fully close our state’s coverage gap.”

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Kemp: Georgia programs give 700K insurance at 138% or less than poverty level

  • by T.A. Dafeo
  • Douglas County Sentinel

Critics continue to say the Georgia Pathways to Coverage program falls short of expectations, but proponents say Georgia’s cumulative approach puts more people on private health insurance plans.

Less than 4,500 Georgians enrolled in Georgia Pathways to Coverage as of mid-June.

“Every Georgian deserves access to affordable health care,” Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, said in a recent announcement. “Unfortunately, the Pathways to Coverage program is falling far short of that vision for our state. “Unfair paperwork requirements and other bureaucratic hurdles are keeping hard-working Georgians from getting covered,” Colbert added. “It’s time to remove these barriers to health coverage for uninsured Georgians, and to look at broader solutions to closing the coverage gap.”

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Consumer Reps Urge Insurance Commissioners To Keep Pressure On Congress For APTCs

  • by Amy Lotven
  • Inside Health Policy

CHICAGO — Consumer representatives praised state insurance regulators for urging Congress to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, and encouraged the regulators to keep up the pressure during a session at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners summer conference on Monday (Aug. 12).

Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future and one of NAIC’s 22 funded Consumer Liaison representatives, and Claire Heyison, senior policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and one of NAIC’s unfunded consumer representatives, also laid out the consequences of letting the credits end, many of which were also included in National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) July 19 letter to the chairs and ranking members of the Senate Finance and Ways & Means committees.

First enacted under the American Rescue Plan in 2021, the enhanced credits made $0 premium plans available to people earning up to 150% of poverty and lowered the premium contribution for those with higher incomes, including by reducing the maximum rate to no more than 8.5% of monthly income.

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State Medicaid expansion plan falls short, says policy organization

  • by Martin Matheny
  • Now Habersham

Just over one year after it came into effect, Georgia’s alternative to Medicaid expansion is not living up to its promise, according to an Atlanta-based policy research organization.

“Unfair paperwork requirements and other bureaucratic hurdles are keeping hard-working Georgians from getting covered,” said Laura Colbert, Executive Director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, which partnered with GBPI in criticizing the Pathways program.

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Experts urge Georgia to reform health insurance system

  • by Wilborn P. Nobles III
  • Axios Atlanta

Health care researchers and advocates want Georgia to implement new policies across its health insurance system as the state concludes its yearlong process of redetermining eligibility for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

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Georgia Advocates Continue Fight for Medicaid Expansion Without Work Requirements

  • by Laura Colbert
  • Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity

Ten states—six of them in the South—have not adopted Medicaid expansion as provided under the Affordable Care Act. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp has implemented a conservative alternative that offers government health insurance to people earning up to the federal poverty level—$15,060 for an individual adult—if they can document that they’re working, in school, or performing other qualifying activities. Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, spoke with Spotlight recently about Kemp’s plan and GHF’s support for more traditional Medicaid expansion. The transcript of the conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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Rural Georgians die earlier from preventable deaths than urban residents

  • by Ariel Hart
  • The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

CDC study cites some causes of growing disparity of preventable early deaths between rural and urban residents.

People in rural Georgia and nationwide are more likely to die early than those in urban areas, and the long-term trend got worse during the pandemic, according to a multi-year study released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rural Georgians are less likely to have job-based health insurance, according to the nonprofit Georgians for a Healthy Future. And in Georgia, uninsured poor adults are not automatically covered by Medicaid, as the state is one of 10 mostly in the South that remain opposed to full Medicaid expansion. That lack of coverage “absolutely (is) one of the predictors and one of the bigger problems,” Garcia said.

 

 

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Medicaid expansion gains momentum in holdout states

  • by Erin Durkin
  • National Journal

The idea of expanding Medicaid is gaining momentum in the last holdout states, with eyes on Mississippi as the next potential state to take up the policy.

As of 2024, only 10 states have not expanded their Medicaid programs. North Carolina and South Dakota are the two newest states to provide Medicaid coverage to people earning no more than 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

The renewed interest comes at a time when states can now get a bump in federal dollars for two years if they adopt Medicaid expansion. The incentive was passed as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.

Laura Colbert, the executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, said awareness of the program is low and it’s complicated to get enrolled.

“We know about two-thirds of Georgians in this income bracket are in a working household so would presumably qualify, and yet we haven’t seen them enroll in it,” Colbert said. “We think a lot of that is because the enrollment process is difficult and it’s not working for the folks it’s supposedly meant for.”

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