ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers will take up a resolution this winter to rename the Port of Savannah after retired U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, David Ralston, speaker of the state House of Representatives, announced Friday.
Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, cited Isakson’s long record of support for Georgia’s deep-water ports and the role they play in the state’s economy.
“Speaker Ralston believes the Port of Savannah stands as a beacon for economic growth,” said Kaleb McMichen, Ralston’s spokesman. “Senator Isakson dedicated his career to building up this state and expanding opportunity for all. … It is only fitting then that one of this state’s most important economic engines, our Port of Savannah, should bear Senator Isakson’s name.”
In particular, McMichen cited Isakson’s role in winning federal funding to deepen Savannah Harbor from 42 feet to 47 feet, a $1 billion project that will allow the Port of Savannah to accommodate the new generation of giant containerized-cargo ships when completed late next year. The port recently became the nation’s busiest export hub.
Isakson retired from the Senate at the end of last year, citing health issues. He was elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving five years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing a congressional district in Atlanta’s northern suburbs.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, tweeted Friday that he plans to introduce a similar resolution at the federal level honoring Isakson.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s new health-insurance reform plan will address three problems at once, Gov. Brian Kemp announced recently when he rolled out two insurance “waivers” approved by the federal government.
The governor’s “Georgia-centric” approach will reduce one of the nation’s highest uninsured rates, lower premiums and increase competition in the private health-insurance market, Kemp said.
But the plan is getting pushback from patient advocates who argue the state isn’t getting enough bang for its buck and could cover more Georgians for about the same cost to taxpayers.
‘This is a huge missed opportunity,” said Laura Colbert, executive director of Georgians for a Healthy Future. “We’re missing the most cost-effective way to solve this problem.”
The two waivers will allow the state to undertake a limited expansion of its Medicaid program and give Georgians with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid options outside the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Under the Medicaid waiver, single adults with incomes up to 100% of the federal poverty level, currently $12,760 a year, can enroll in Medicaid or an employer-sponsored insurance plan starting next July. The state will help pay premiums and copays for those who sign up for insurance through their jobs.
To qualify, enrollees will have to take part in “qualifying activities” for at least 80 hours a month, such as a job, on-the-job training, vocational training, education or community service.
Under a second waiver, the state will fund a reinsurance program starting in January 2022 aimed at holding down premiums by paying part of an insurance company’s claims once they exceed a certain amount.
The program is expected to reduce premiums statewide up to 10% on average and up to 25% in some communities, primarily in rural Georgia.
The second waiver also will eliminate the healthcare.gov portal the ACA provides for enrollment in individual coverage plans, effective as of January 2023, and let Georgians sign up directly with private insurance carriers, local brokers or agents, or through web-broker sites.
Georgia enrollment in healthcare.gov has fallen by 22% since 2016, a trend the governor blamed on the site being clunky to use.
“For me, healthcare.gov is a four-letter word,” Kemp said. “The enrollment process has been nothing short of disappointing.”
The state anticipates the Medicaid waiver will cost taxpayers an average of $218 million per year. On the other hand, Deloitte Consulting, the firm the state hired to help develop the waivers, projected the cost of a “full-blown” expansion of Medicaid through the ACA would cost Georgia $547 million annually.
But the plan’s critics question Deloitte’s numbers. They cite a state Department of Audits and Accounts report last year that a full expansion of Medicaid – as 38 other states have done – would cost Georgia $213.2 million in fiscal 2022.
Also, while the state’s Medicaid waiver is expected to cover about 65,000 Georgians, last year’s fiscal note asserted a full expansion – covering single adults with incomes up to 138% of the poverty level – would serve more than 500,000.
“You’re spending four times more per person with this waiver than you would with a [full] Medicaid expansion,” said Laura Harker, health policy analyst for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
But supporters say there’s more to Georgia’s brand of Medicaid expansion than meets the eye.
Kyle Wingfield, president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, asserted in a recent column the Medicaid waiver’s impact will be felt far beyond the projected numbers because it won’t discourage people from bettering themselves by earning more money.
“It will help provide a smoother transition to private insurance markets,” he wrote. “So, as people climb the income ladder and move out of the program, new people will enter it – extending the impact to more Georgians.”
Indeed, Kemp predicted more than 270,000 Georgians ultimately will benefit from the Medicaid expansion.
The Georgia waivers’ detractors also are concerned about the qualifying activities the Medicaid waiver will require of enrollees.
Colbert said the provision leaves out full-time caregivers and those who don’t have access to the internet, which enrollees will have to use regularly to report their activities.
“The history of Medicaid hasn’t been a program about work,” Harker said. “It’s been a program about health.”
Harker also defended the healthcare.gov website. She said the portal has rebounded from a rash of technical problems when it was first rolled out during the last decade.
“We’d be the only state without some type of central marketplace,” she said of Georgia’s plan to abandon healthcare.gov. “Most states either have healthcare.gov or their own exchange.”
But Wingfield argued that replacing healthcare.gov with a wider array of coverage options in the private market would let Georgians buy less expensive coverage if they choose.
“Brokers and insurance carriers will be able to show consumers not only the subsidized, but very expensive, ACA plans, but other types of coverage that may cost them even less out of pocket,” he wrote.
“Injecting more competition and options into this marketplace is a crucial step toward reining in prices and giving Georgians better access to care.”
ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia declined by 1,197 last week to 43,605, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
The agency paid out more than $168 million in benefits last week, bringing total benefits paid since the coronavirus pandemic exploded in Georgia last March to more than $15 billion, more than the last 27 years combined.
Meanwhile, the labor department announced a pilot project set to begin Nov. 2 that will allow claimants to schedule an online appointment with a claims representative to ask questions about their claim.
Each appointment will be assigned a two-hour window during which a representative will call the claimant. Almost 3,000 appointments will be scheduled during the program’s first two weeks.
“The addition of this online tool will further our ability to address claim issues,” Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. “We have been adding personnel to our staff to help with general responses, and this addition will allow our experienced staff to focus on resolving claimant issues more efficiently.”
Claimants are urged to be ready to discuss their claim during the time frame allotted. Additional time slots will be added each Monday for the following week. On Monday, Nov. 2, the appointment scheduler will be available on the agency’s website and will be highlighted under the Spotlight area on the homepage.
Since March 21, the accommodation and food services job sector has accounted for the most initial unemployment claims in Georgia with 950,239. The health care and social assistance job sector is next with 456,145 claims, followed by retail trade with 419,395.
More than 167,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding careers, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
Paul Bowers (left) is retiring from the top spot at Georgia Power and will be succeeded by Chris Womack (right).
ATLANTA – Georgia Power Chairman, President and CEO Paul Bowers will retire next April after more than a decade leading the Atlanta-based utility, the company announced Thursday.
Bowers’ retirement will coincide with a key milestone at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion project, the loading of fuel into the first of two new reactors being built at the site south of Augusta.
“It’s not a coincidence,” Bowers told Capitol Beat News Service Thursday. “That’s a signal that unit is ready to go commercial.”
Georgia Power’s Board of Directors has elected Chris Womack, executive vice president and president of external affairs at Georgia Power parent Southern Company, to succeed Bowers. Womack will begin serving as Georgia Power’s president Nov. 1, then take over the additional roles of chairman and CEO upon Bowers’ retirement.
Bowers has presided not only over the Plant Vogtle project but also has led Georgia Power’s transition toward relying less on coal for power generation and more on clean energy.
The utility currently gets 15% of its energy-generation portfolio from renewable sources and is heading toward 18% under a three-year plan the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved last year.
“Working with the commission, we’ll continue to add [renewable energy] taking advantage of new technological opportunities,” Womack said.
Womack joined Southern Company in 1988 and has held several leadership positions within the company and its subsidiaries, including stints at Georgia Power, Southern Company Generation and Savannah Electric. His resume also includes experience in human resources as a senior vice president at Southern Company, and he has served in a public relations role at Alabama Power.
“Chris checks all the boxes,” Bowers said. “He has developed into one of the great leaders of our company.”
Womack said getting units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle up and running will be a top priority. Approved by the PSC back in 2009, the project has been plagued with extensive cost overruns and lengthy delays caused in part by the bankruptcy of prime contractor Westinghouse.
However, Georgia Power has doggedly pursued completing the first new nuclear project to be built in the U.S. in decades, even as other utilities gave up after encountering technical problems with the next-generation Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.
Unit 3 is due to go into service in November of next year and Unit 4 is expected to follow one year later.
“Based on current projections, will have [Unit 3] online a couple of months early,” Bowers said.
Bowers joined Southern Company in 1979 at Gulf Power and has served as Georgia Power’s chairman, president and CEO for the past 11 years.
ATLANTA – Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has opened up a slight lead over President Donald Trump in Georgia less than a week before Election Day, according to a new poll.
The statewide survey of 504 registered Georgia voters conducted by New Jersey’s Monmouth University Polling Institute Oct. 23-27 found Biden’s support at 50% and Trump’s at 45%. The poll’s margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.4%.
More than half (58%) of the voters surveyed said they had already cast their ballots. Among that group, Biden enjoyed a huge lead, 55% to 43%. Trump held a 48% to 44% advantage among those who had yet to vote.
“Trump is likely to win the Election Day vote. The question is by how much,” said Patrick Murray, the polling institute’s director. “The Democratic voters left on the table at this point tend to be less engaged and thus harder to turn out. So, it is still possible for Trump to make up his deficit in the early vote.”
In demographic breakdowns, Trump held a solid lead among voters ages 65 and older, 58% to 42%. That’s a bit less of an advantage than the 61% to 36% margin for Trump in a Monmouth poll released last month.
However, Biden holds a 54% to 40% lead over Trump among voters under 50 years old, up from his 47% to 42% lead with this group last month.
No Democrat running for president has carried Georgia since Bill Clinton won his first term in the White House back in 1992.
Meanwhile, Democrats running for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats also fared well in the Monmouth poll.
Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff narrowly leads Republican Sen. David Perdue, 49% to 46%, well within the poll’s margin of error. Perdue was six points up on Ossoff in two previous surveys Monmouth released last month and back in July.
In the other contest, a blanket primary with 20 candidates on the ballot to fill the unexpired term of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, Democrat Raphael Warnock holds a big lead with 41% of the vote. Warnock has gained steadily, up from 21% last month and just 9% in July, mostly at the expense fellow Democrat Matt Lieberman, who has fallen in the Monmouth poll to just 4% from a high last summer of 14%.
Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, appointed to the seat by Gov. Brian Kemp late last year, and GOP U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Gainesville are in a close battle for second, with Loeffler holding the advantage 21% to 18%.
“Loeffler and Collins are now battling it out for a spot in the runoff,” Murray said. “It may come down to who is seen as the stronger Trump loyalist among Republican voters.”
With no one likely to win more than 50% of the vote, the margin needed to avoid a runoff, the expected second round between Warnock and either Loeffler or Collins would be held in early January, possibly determining whether Democrats take control of the Senate or Republicans keep their majority.
