Georgians for a Healthy Future hosted an educational forum titled Strong Foundations: Building a System of Care to Address the Behavioral Health Needs of Georgia Children on Tuesday, May 15. The forum explored the behavioral health needs of Georgia children and youth, Georgia’s publicly-supported behavioral health landscape, and successes and opportunities in the current system of care. The event also raised awareness about Georgia’s system of care in an effort to improve access to behavioral health services for children and youth.

The event began with Respect Institute speaker Tammie Harrison, who shared her experiences navigating the behavioral health care system and getting to a place of recovery.

Because many of the event attendees were new to the topic of children’s behavioral health (BH), GHF’s Executive Director Laura Colbert provided some foundational information about the prevalence of children’s BH conditions, contributors to poor BH, and the pathways to BH care and supports for young Georgians. You can find Laura’s PowerPoint slides here. She also debuted GHF’s new behavioral health fact sheet.

Dante McKay, Director of the Office of Children, Young Adults, & Families at the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) provided attendees with an overview of DBHDD’s work, the 2017 System of Care state plan, and how the recently signed FY19 budget would impact the department’s ability to serve Georgia children and youth.

Dr. Erica Fener-Sitkoff, Executive Director of Voices for Georgia’s Children moderated a panel discussion of BH service providers, which included Wendy Farmer of Behavioral Health Link, Laura Lucas of Project LAUNCH (DBHDD), and Monica McGannon of CHRIS 180. The panelists discussed barriers to accessing BH services, which they said include continued stigma, lack of trained workforce, and transportation. The panel also identified innovative efforts, like Project LAUNCH and mobile crisis services, to bring BH services closer to consumers when and where they need it. When asked how Georgia’s next Governor could continue to make progress in the area of children’s behavioral health, panelists suggested a focus on workforce development, increasing access to community-based substance use treatment for teens, and prevention and early intervention.

If you missed the event, a recording of the webcast is available here.

To see photos, review materials, and read more about our Strong Foundations event, please visit the event page.

Travis suffered from a series of strokes when he was 11 years old that left him with several physical disabilities. He is one of the approximately 250,000 Georgians with disabilities to be covered by Medicaid.

Several years ago, Travis started volunteering with DisabilityLINK because he believes in the power of community and he likes being able to help others. Since then, he was hired as a Independent Living Specialist at the organization, where he connects people with disabilities to community-based resources and assists in coordinating various events at the DisabilityLINK office. He also works alongside other activists on issues such as housing, accessibility and self advocacy.

Travis recognizes that Medicaid is the reason he is able to financially support himself and work for an advocacy organization. Without the support Medicaid provides, Travis explains, he would not be able to help others the way he has been able to through his work at DisabilityLINK. When asked what he wanted others to know about him being able to receive affordable health insurance he replied, “With me working I am able to be a tax paying citizen.”

Medicaid is essential to ensuring that people with disabilities, like Travis, are able to lead fulfilling, independent lives as active participants in their communities. Georgia’s Medicaid program provides almost 2 million low-income children, people with disabilities, seniors, pregnant women, and very low-income parents with access to the health care services that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Your story is powerful! Stories help to put a human face to health care issues in Georgia. When you share your story, you help others understand the issue, its impact on Georgia, and its importance.

Your health care story is valuable because the reader may be your neighbor, friend, someone in your congregation, or your legislator. It may inspire others to share their stories or to become advocates. It is an opportunity for individuals who receive Medicaid or fall into the coverage gap, their family members, their physicians and concerned Georgia citizens to show that there are real people with real needs who will be impacted by the health policy decisions made by Congress and Georgia’s state leaders.

Share your story here!

Georgians for a Healthy Future will be at the Capitol throughout the forty-day session to monitor health-related legislation, serve as a voice for health care consumers, and keep you informed about opportunities to engage and take action. For the past four years, our top legislative priority had been closing Georgia’s coverage gap by expanding Medicaid. In the wake of the 2016 election, the national policy landscape has shifted considerably, knocking that off the table this year and placing existing coverage, care, and consumer protections at risk. Despite this backdrop of uncertainty and a critical need for federal advocacy, there will be important decisions made over the next three months at the state level that impact the health of individuals, families, and communities.

While it is early, here are the major health care issues we preliminarily expect legislators to tackle in 2017:

• Renewal of the provider fee commonly known as the “hospital tax” or “bed tax” to help fund Medicaid and keep hospital doors open
• Development of a set of reforms to improve mental health services based on the recommendations of a legislative study committee that has been meeting over the past several months
• Creation of a “repeal” task force to assess the impact of changes to or repeal of the Affordable Care Act on Georgia
• Addressing the practice of surprise medical billing, which can leave insured consumers with unexpected bills when a health care provider is out-of-network
• Increasing reimbursement rates for certain primary care services for health care providers participating in Medicaid
• Improving access to dental care for children, seniors, and people with disabilities

Georgians for a Healthy Future has several ways for you to stay up-to-date on what’s happening under the Gold Dome this year:

• Learn: Download our 2017 policy priorities, read up on how the legislative process works, and track health-related legislation
• Engage: Sign up for our Georgia Health Action Network (GHAN) action alerts
• Participate: Identify and contact your specific legislators on issues you care about

Stay tuned for updates throughout the session.

The President-Elect and Congressional leadership are already working to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but have not yet communicated what a replacement might be. Repealing the law without an adequate replacement would do great harm to consumers, destabilize Georgia’s health insurance market, and stress our health care delivery system. It´s important to take care of your health in every way possible, if you happen to have issues such as stress or depression, especially Teen Counseling, buy kratom a natural drug that fights these issues immediately as cannabis products which are found in a cannabis store, you can also check Afinil which will help you out as well, read also is CBD good for you. If you want to know our special health care you can visit healthyhempoil.com.
Approximately one million Georgians would lose their health insurance by 2019, bringing the number of uninsured in our state to a staggering 2.4 million people – more than before the ACA was passed. Millions more would lose their basic rights and protections as consumers, and access to care would be at risk. We could lose:

• Protections for people with pre-existing conditions from being charged more or from being barred from coverage. Pre-existing conditions include chronic diseases like diabetes, mental health conditions, asthma, cancer, and more

• Protections that keep women from being charged more than men

• Free preventive care

• The ability to keep young adults on their parent’s plan until age 26

• Financial protections that limit the amount of money consumers must pay out-of-pocket each year for care and that keep insurers from limiting lifetime benefits

• Anti-discrimination provisions that protect consumers based on sex, gender identity, language spoken, or country of origin

• Health insurance navigators who offer free, local, unbiased assistance to help people find the health care coverage that works best for them. It is nice to help people and care for them, encourage them physically, spiritually, and emotionally made by CDPAP services.

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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 31, 2016

Contacts:

Georgians for a Healthy Future – Laura Colbert, lcolbert@healthyfuturega.org (404) 567 – 5016 x 2

Georgia Budget & Policy Institute – Laura Harker, lharker@gbpi.org (404) 420 – 1324 x 103

Mercy Care – Diana Lewis, diana.lewis@mercyatlanta.org (678) 843 – 8509

Atlanta, GA – August 31, 2016

Today the Georgia Chamber of Commerce released their proposal to address Georgia’s coverage gap, and expand access to health coverage for low-income Georgians.

Leaders of the Cover Georgia coalition responded with the following statements.
Cindy Zeldin, Executive Director of Georgians for a Healthy Future, a health care consumer advocacy organization that heads the Cover Georgia coalition said:

“We are encouraged that business leaders and health care industry stakeholders have prioritized health care coverage as a necessary component of economic vitality. The set of policy options put forth by the Georgia Chamber provides a strong starting point. We look forward to a statewide conversation in the coming months about the best approach to ensure all Georgians have a pathway to coverage and access to care.”

Laura Harker, Policy Analyst for Georgian Budget & Policy Institute, a nonprofit focused on Georgia’s fiscal and economic outlook:

“We are encouraged that Georgia leaders are talking more than ever about the need to expand health care access and give the state’s health care system a timely boost. Closing the coverage gap is a smart investment for Georgia that would bring in billions of federal dollars and reduce uncompensated care costs.”

Tom Andrews, President of Mercy Care, a network of health clinics that provide primary care and support services to those who are homeless and uninsured said:

“On behalf of the 88% of our patients who are uninsured, we cannot adequately express the positive impact any one of these plans would have on the health of the patients we care for.”

Cover Georgia is a coalition of more than 70 organizations that have come together to educate the public, engage Georgia’s policy makers, and advocate to close Georgia’s coverage gap by expanding Medicaid. We believe a coverage solution is one that extends coverage to all those Georgians caught in the coverage gap, does not erect unnecessary barriers to care, and maximizes the federal dollars set aside for Georgia.

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More resources about the coverage gap:

• A Chartbook for Understanding Medicaid in Georgia and the Opportunity to Improve It
• Georgia Left Me Out: Coverage Gap Fact Sheet
• Strengthening Georgia’s Rural Hospitals and Increasing Access to Care

Cover Georgia Coalition
CoverGA.org