Coronavirus has sickened hundreds of thousands people and killed thousands more in Georgia. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Georgians ages 55 and older as well as those with a variety of health issues will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccines starting next Monday amid a recent boost in supplies, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday.
Vaccines could also potentially be available for all Georgia adults starting next month if the current number of shots that federal officials are sending weekly to the state continues to increase as it has in recent weeks, Kemp said at a news conference.
“Provided we continue to see increasing vaccine supply, it is our intent to open up vaccination to all adults the first part of next month,” Kemp said.
Along with adults 55-years and older, vaccines will be open starting March 15 to Georgians with health conditions including cancer, moderate-to-severe asthma, heart conditions, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, hypertension, liver disease, COPD, chronic kidney disease, cerebrovascular disease and compromised immune systems.
Kemp said he is expanding eligibility to keep pace with the increasing supply of vaccines Georgia is receiving from the federal government and to avoid seeing lagging demand among currently eligible people. Georgia is currently receiving weekly shipments of 223,000 vaccine doses.
“Adding these additional high-risk Georgians will mean that vaccination will be available to categories that have accounted for 92% of our deaths due to COVID-19 in Georgia,” Kemp said.
“As we have from the beginning, we will protect the most vulnerable to severe illness, hospitalization or death, and enable Georgians to get back to normal.”
The newly eligible Georgians add to a growing list of vaccine-eligible people including school teachers and staff, health-care workers, nursing home residents and staff, first responders, those with mental and behavioral health issues, parents of children with medical conditions and people ages 65 and older.
Nearly 2.5 million vaccines have been given so far in Georgia, including to roughly two-thirds of all people 65-years and older in the state, according to Kemp’s office. Vaccination rates have climbed as the state receives more doses of the Pfizer, Moderna and recently approved Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Kemp, who said he will get the vaccine soon, urged teachers and others who are already eligible for vaccines to sign up for appointments now with demand about to spike from the newly eligible group of Georgians starting next week.
“This is your opportunity, these days ahead, to get in the queue and get your vaccines,” Kemp said. “This is going to move rapidly, especially in certain parts of the state, and what we want is for people to get vaccinated.”
Georgians can pre-register for a vaccine appointment at myvaccinegeorgia.com even if they do not yet qualify under the governor’s eligibility criteria. They will be notified once they qualify and scheduled for an appointment.
The governor also said his administration is aiming to quickly expand eligibility further to Georgians who have been hit hard by the pandemic including restaurant, agriculture and grocery workers. How soon those groups will be able to get the vaccine depends on supplies holding steady.
“We want to move that population as quickly as we can and try to protect them and keep our economy going,” Kemp said. “All of this helps get us back to normal.”
Georgia has been ratcheting up to distribute vaccines since the first Pfizer and Moderna doses started arriving in mid-December, particularly through moves to open several mass vaccination sites in different regions throughout the state.
So far, state officials have opened four mass vaccination sites in metro Atlanta, Macon, Albany and Habersham County, and are set to open another five sites next week in Savannah, Columbus, Waycross and Bartow and Washington counties.
The vaccine ramp-up comes as COVID-19 positive case rates and hospitalizations continue falling after a surging outbreak that swept over the Georgia around the winter holiday season. Hospitals have seen a fall in COVID-19 patients from around 5,700 during the winter to 1,500 currently, Kemp said. Deaths traced to the virus are also starting to decline, he added.
“Every metric in the COVID-19 pandemic is headed in the right direction,” Kemp said.
More than 830,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Georgia as of Tuesday afternoon, with nearly 197,000 more reported positive antigen tests indicating likely positive results. The virus has killed 15,647 Georgians.
ATLANTA – Community groups and health-care providers in Southwest Georgia will get help addressing problems with medical billing and debt thanks to a $190,000 grant, Atlanta-based consumer advocacy group Georgia Watch announced Wednesday.
The grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will let Georgia Watch work with two other nonprofits – Georgians for a Healthy Future and SOWEGA Rising – to help hospitals in the region improve their billing and collections practices.
“We will leverage the policy expertise and relationships Georgians for a Healthy Future has in the region, as well as the local knowledge and community trust SOWEGA Rising has as a minority-led grassroots organization based in Southwest Georgia,” said Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch.
Medical debt has been a growing problem across the country that has only worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. About 40% of Americans reporting problems with medical debt have received lower credit scores as a result, according to 2016 data from The Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving health care.
Also, 26% reported they have been unable to pay for basic necessities such as food, heat and housing, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“Medical debt burdens Georgians significantly, stemming in part from the state’s large uninsured population,” said Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future. “Southwest Georgia, in particular, has some of the highest health costs in the country due primarily to the lack of competition among providers and insurers.”
Sherrell Byrd, chair of SOWEGA Rising, said the medical debt burden in Southwest Georgia falls disproportionately on the region’s minority population.
“Particularly in rural Georgia, you will see the highest rates of medical bills, which drives up insurance costs, creating barriers to people who have to choose between paying bills and seeking necessary medical care,” Byrd said. “With this funding, we can find solutions that will restore health-care dignity for many people living in Southwest Georgia.”
Low-income children in Georgia are set to soon have an easier path to collecting Medicaid benefits under legislation that passed out of the General Assembly on Wednesday.
Sponsored by state Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, the bill would create an “express lane” for families eligible for food stamps to be automatically enrolled in Georgia’s Medicaid program, rather than having to fill out separate paperwork.
Pending approval from the federal government, the automatic enrollment would allow an estimated 60,000 Medicaid-eligible children who receive food stamps to also join the joint state-federal health program, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Georgians for a Healthy Future.
The bill passed the state Senate unanimously on Wednesday after advancing out of the Georgia House of Representatives last month, also by unanimous vote. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, who carried Cooper’s bill in the Senate, said the express-lane format would help cut out cumbersome paperwork and bring more children with medical issues into the Medicaid fold.
“It reduces duplicative services, it reduces bureaucracy and actually gives services to children in need,” Watson said from the Senate floor. “It’s good from a hospital perspective … and it’s good from a government perspective as well.”
Passage of Cooper’s bill comes amid a spike in Medicaid enrollment among low-income Georgians during the COVID-19 pandemic, as enrollment in the state grew by about 338,000 between March of last year and December.
The bill also comes as Georgia’s partial Medicaid-expansion plan has been thrown into doubt after President Joe Biden’s administration moved last month to roll back work requirements for Medicaid eligibility put in place under former President Donald Trump.
Georgia’s partial-Medicaid expansion plan, set to take effect in July, requires eligible adults to work, attend school or volunteer at least 80 hours each month. Critics say the work requirement would leave in the lurch many Georgians who would otherwise qualify for benefits.
The plan would cover adults earning up to 100% of the federal poverty line, adding an estimated 50,000 more beneficiaries, according to state figures. Currently, Georgia Medicaid covers adults with incomes about 35% of the federal poverty line, as well as children in households making up to 138% of the poverty line and low-income senior, blind and disabled adults.
Democratic state lawmakers have long pushed for full Medicaid expansion in Georgia, which would cover adults up to 138% of the poverty line and could add 500,000 more recipients to the program. Republican lawmakers have blocked their attempts, arguing the cost-sharing arrangement between the state and federal governments would still be too expensive for Georgia.
ATLANTA – A constitutional amendment to legalize online sports betting in Georgia is the only game in town after the state House of Representatives shelved a bill that would not require a constitutional change.
Lawmakers still had not taken up House Bill 86, legalizing sports betting by statute, when the General Assembly’s annual Crossover Day deadline fell shortly before midnight Monday.
With that bill essentially dead for the year, the only sports betting measure left for lawmakers to consider is a constitutional amendment the state Senate passed last week putting the issue on the statewide ballot next year for Georgia voters to decide.
While a coalition of Atlanta’s four professional sports teams was pushing for the House bill, the group is comfortable pursuing the constitutional amendment route, Billy Linville, spokesman for the Georgia Professional Sports Integrity Alliance, said Tuesday.
“We still believe sports betting could be done by statute,” Linville said. “[But] we’re in a strong and positive position. … We’re confident it will move forward.”
The most significant difference between the House bill and the Senate legislation is that constitutional amendments require two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate to pass, while statutes only need simple majorities.
Sports betting cleared that difficult hurdle last week, passing in the Senate 41-10, marking the first time in more than a decade of effort that any expansion of legalized gambling in Georgia beyond the lottery has made it to the floor of either legislative chamber and passed.
“We were not surprised,” Linville said. “This is a popular piece of legislation throughout Georgia. We knew we were in a strong position once we got it to the floor.”
Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, was the chief sponsor of House Bill 86. But he, too, said Tuesday he believes he can get the constitutional amendment through the House Economic Development & Tourism Committee, which he chairs.
“So many people are more comfortable with pushing this on to voters,” he said. “I’m supremely confident it will come out of committee.”
Stephens said a key reason he favored passing online sports betting by statute is that it could have been put in place quickly, so the state could begin bringing in tax revenue from the proceeds. Going the constitutional amendment route means delaying sports betting until 2023 because it couldn’t be put on the statewide ballot until November 2022.
Under the Senate measure, a state tax of 16% on the proceeds from online sports betting would be divided between need-based scholarships, rural health care and broadband deployment.
“I just hate the loss of that potential revenue,” Stephens said.
An amendment senators approved on the floor of the chamber last week specifies that least 50% of the state’s share of the proceeds from sports betting would be earmarked for needs-based scholarships. The lottery-funded HOPE Scholarships program originally based awards on family income when the lottery was created during the 1990s but soon was converted into strictly a merit-based initiative.
Legislative Democrats pushed for needs-based scholarships to be included in the legislation in order to win their support.
Stephens said needs-based scholarship awards have become increasingly essential as cuts to HOPE awards that began in 2011 have eaten into the tuition coverage it provides. At one time, HOPE covered full tuition, books and fees for eligible students.
“Especially now that HOPE only pays 70% of the scholarship, it’s become a [financial] barrier,” Stephens said.
The constitutional amendment’s Senate supporters also sought to attract votes by putting a provision in the legislation prohibiting bettors from using credit to place bets and limiting the amount of money a bettor could deposit into his or her online account each month.
A major argument against legalizing sports betting has been that it would lead to problem gamblers squandering their paychecks or the family’s grocery money.
“The issue for us was to do what we could with the compulsive gambler to make sure they don’t bet the farm on sports betting,” Stephens said.
With time growing short in the 2021 General Assembly session, Stephens said he plans to bring the Senate legislation before his committee soon.
The Georgia Senate convened to vote on several major bills on voting and elections on March 8, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The Georgia Senate has struck down a measure aimed at hiking salaries for members of the General Assembly as well as several other top state officials.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Valencia Seay, D-Riverdale, proposed raising salaries for Georgia elected officials including the lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state school superintendent, and the commissioners of agriculture, insurance and labor.
Backers argued the salary increases for state lawmakers would open the General Assembly’s membership to average-earning Georgians and not just more wealthy and retired politicians.
Opponents shot down the measure on Monday’s annual Crossover Day in the General Assembly as less of a priority for lawmakers compared with impactful elections and criminal-justice bills still winding their way through the current legislative session.
The measure failed by a 20-33 vote with most Republican senators and one Democratic senator voting against it.
Under the bill, salaries would have been increased for most statewide positions. The secretary of state’s salary would have risen from about $123,000 to $147,000, and the attorney general’s income would have gone from about $139,000 to $164,000.
The lieutenant governor also would have gotten a salary bump, climbing from about $92,000 to $135,000, according to the bill.
The salary for the speaker of Georgia’s House of Representatives, who is among the state’s most powerful elected officials, would have increased from $99,000 a year to $135,000.
State lawmakers in both chambers, meanwhile, would have earned a salary raise from roughly $17,000 a year to $29,908, marking a cushion aimed at giving more Georgians a chance to seek office and support themselves without financial stress.
A separate but largely identical measure in the House of Representatives sponsored by Rep. Wes Cantrell, R-Woodstock, was scheduled for a vote Monday but did not receive consideration, likely signaling it is dead for the year.
That measure’s chances to advance in the legislature plummeted after the Senate’s vote to scuttle Seay’s bill, despite the pay raises being endorsed by House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge.
