NEWS & MEDIA
- Home
- >
- News & Media
- >
- In The News
- >
- Page 2
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.
2025
ATLANTA – Advocates seeking health insurance for more low-income Georgians are encouraged that Medicaid expansion is starting to draw support among what for years has been unified Republican opposition.
Although just four GOP state senators joined 17 Democrats when Senate Bill 50 was introduced late last month, it was still a milestone for Laura Colbert.
“This bill is really exciting because it’s Georgia’s first bipartisan legislation that would close Georgia’s coverage gap,” said Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future.
The measure would create PeachCare Plus, expanding Medicaid access for Georgians making less than 138% of the federal poverty level.
Currently, only Georgians who earn at or below the poverty level qualify for coverage. Unlike 40 other states, Georgia has not sought the expanded access – and associated federal money – that has been on the table for more than a decade.
Democrats in the state legislature are making another attempt this session to extend health insurance to more Georgians under Medicaid coverage — and this time, four Republicans have already signed on, despite Gov. Brian Kemp making clear he does not back full Medicaid expansion.
“We believe that this bipartisan legislation can get passed,” Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones told reporters at a Tuesday press conference.
Using a mix of state and federal funds, Georgia would enroll patients into plans purchased on the private insurance market. Arkansas is the only other state with a similar model, and it has drawn interest from some Georgia Republicans.
“This is the first bill by Republican cosponsors that would also fully close Georgia’s coverage gap,” says Laura Colbert, who directs the group Georgians for a Healthy Future.
While Colbert’s organization supports traditional Medicaid expansion, which she maintains would be cheaper for Georgia taxpayers, she says PeachCare Plus would cover many more people than Georgia Pathways.
A number of organizations will set the stage for likely bills to watch during the 40-day legislative session that wraps up in early spring. Each winter, a variety of Georgia nonprofits and business interests host breakfasts, suppers and other events to explore some of the issues awaiting lawmakers and to make the case for their legislative priorities.
The first week of the 2025 session also features a pair of legislative preview breakfasts starting on Jan. 14 with the nonprofit Georgians for a Healthy Future and Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s Eggs and Issues that attracts a who’s who of Georgia politics and business.
Jan 14: Georgians for a Healthy Future will host an event at The Freight Depot in downtown, its annual Health Care Unscrambled event, where a bi-partisan panel of state lawmakers and experts will explore health care policy and public health issues. The 2025 event’s keynote speaker is Hemi Tewarson, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy.
Georgia officials haven’t invested enough in the state agency that processes public benefits applications, said Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, a nonprofit policy advocacy organization. The problem is exacerbated by staffing shortages, high staff turnover, and outdated technology, she said.
In November 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified state officials that Georgia was “severely out of compliance” with timeliness standards for processing SNAP applications. A recent progress report details the scope of the issues: a system that incorrectly prioritizes applications, not enough staff to handle a backlog of nearly 52,000 new applications, and no system to promptly reassign applications when staff are off.
“These delays create real hardship, forcing families to make choices between paying for medicine, food, or rent while they wait for the support they’re entitled to,” Colbert said.
More than a year after the state launched the Pathways to Coverage program, offering Medicaid in exchange for work or other state-approved activities, advocates say the program is too difficult for many applicants to navigate. A new report is recommending changes to Pathways as it faces renewal next year.
Enrollment in Pathways to Coverage has been sluggish, with numbers far below the state’s initial forecasts. Estimates suggest that tens of thousands of Georgians could potentially qualify, with just over 4,200 people signing up during Pathways’ first year.
“Georgia could leverage lessons learned from this first year of Pathways to Coverage implementation and really pivot to a program that fully closes the health coverage gap while boosting the state’s economy,” said Knetta Adkins with the organization Georgians for a Healthy Future, a group that favors full expansion.
Enrollment in Georgia’s year-old limited Medicaid expansion program is well below expectations because of a cumbersome enrollment process and restrictive eligibility criteria, an Atlanta-based public policy group reported Tuesday.
Only 4,231 low-income Georgians were enrolled in the Georgia Pathways program as of the end of last month, well below the 25,000 the state Department of Community Health (DCH) had projected for its first year and even further behind the 240,485 individuals ages 19 through 64 with incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level, according to U.S. Census data from 2022.
Deanna Williams, a health insurance navigator for the nonprofit Georgians for a Healthy Future, said Georgia Pathways enrollees sometimes run afoul of the work requirement because their hours may differ from week to week, which can put them temporarily above the income-eligibility limit.
On Monday, the 1.3 million Georgians who bought health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace exchange, also known as Obamacare, can start window shopping for next year’s policy. But for the first time since the ACA went live over a decade ago, they will be blocked from doing so on the federal website healthcare.gov.
Instead, Georgia is launching its own marketplace for 2025 coverage: GeorgiaAccess.gov. Open enrollment begins Friday.
Georgians for a Healthy Future, a policy nonprofit, won a $1 million grant to provide navigators. It also is distributing information on the program through a statewide network of YMCAs.
Colbert said GHF was “cautiously optimistic.”
Whitney Griggs, who works on policy for GHF, said she hopes all Georgians can get unbiased help anywhere they shop.
“We don’t know how they’re going to play out in real time,” Griggs said.
For more than a decade, Georgians have been able to sign up for health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the federal government’s healthcare.gov website.
That’s about to change. Starting Nov. 1, a new state-based exchange – Georgia Access – will replace healthcare.gov as Georgia becomes the 20th state to trade in the federal exchange for a state-specific model.
“The ACA envisioned that each state would operate their own exchange,” said Whitney Griggs, health policy director for the nonprofit Georgians for a Healthy Future. “States know best how to reach their residents. … (Georgia) has a real opportunity to create something better than healthcare.gov.”…
But Griggs said some aspects of ditching healthcare.gov for a state-based model are cause for concern. She said Georgia’s decision to sign up enrollees to Georgia Access through web brokers or insurance companies as well as the program’s own website could lead “bad actors” to enroll people in coverage plans that are not ACA-compliant.
“Other states are really pushing enrollment through their own websites,” Griggs said. “Georgia is going to be the only state relying on this model so heavily.”
As a plume of smoke from a chemical fire hangs over metro Atlanta, amid a state of emergency after deadly Hurricane Helene, and in the wake of a Covid surge that hit a new summer high, the Georgia Board of Public Health is absent from the public eye.
For the fifth month in a row, the board on Friday canceled its monthly meeting, which had been planned for Tuesday. No agenda had been posted and no explanation for the cancellation was given.
The nine-member board, which oversees and sets general policy for the Georgia Department of Public Health and its $800 million-plus annual budget, has met just three times this year, most recently in May, canceling seven meetings including October’s.
Georgia’s open meetings law requires boards and other agencies to hold regular meetings but also allows them to cancel and postpone them. Advocates of public health and open government say failing to meet regularly is a bad practice.
Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, ticked off many of the things going on right now, including a toxic gas release from the BioLab fire, Hurricane Helene relief, the highest rate of new HIV/AIDs cases in the country, and limited access to Covid vaccines for uninsured Georgians heading into peak respiratory virus season.
“These rankings and statistics seem to suggest we need more public health board meetings, discourse and planning, not less,” Colbert said, adding that the board’s absence highlights a lack of government accountability.
“Public agencies are accountable to the public that they serve … We are open to learning why the decrease in meeting frequency has emerged — perhaps there is a good reason,” Colbert said. “But communicating that reason is important, for good governance and good health.”