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Georgia Republicans Refuse, Again, to Expand Medicaid
March 1, 2024
In devastating news for 1.4 million uninsured Georgians, Republican leadership once again refused to expand Medicaid this legislative session. With no bill passing either chamber by yesterday’s Crossover Day deadline, Medicaid expansion is highly unlikely this year—terrible news for the state’s 500,000 people who would be covered by Medicaid expansion.
“The callousness toward human suffering shown by the Kemp administration and Republican leadership on this issue should be shocking, but it’s become all too common,” said DPG Executive Director Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye. “Georgia Republicans are telling a half million people that they don’t get health insurance, despite billions of federal dollars sitting on the table waiting to cover them. How many of those Georgians can’t wait another year for Republicans to get around to caring about them?”
Due in part to Georgia Republicans’ repeated failures to expand Medicaid, the state remains among the worst in the country in terms of uninsured rate as well as maternal mortality rate.
“Other states with Republican leadership can figure this out; why can’t we?” continued Olasanoye. “Elected Republicans in Mississippi are calling Medicaid expansion ‘a moral imperative [that] should transcend politics,’ while Governor Kemp is suing the federal government to keep pushing his failed Pathways program. When does it become a moral imperative for Brian Kemp to do anything meaningful for Georgia’s 1.4 million uninsured?”
Here is how Georgia would benefit from full Medicaid expansion:
- Full Medicaid expansion would cover nearly half a million Georgians and is paid for by federal funding.
- Georgia would receive billions in federal funding by agreeing to fully expand Medicaid.
- Full Medicaid expansion would create thousands of jobs each year in Georgia and help rural hospitals stay open.
