Medicaid expansion in Georgia drawing interest from long-opposed Republicans

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. 

To qualify in Georgia now, a single person must earn less than $15,650 and a family of four is capped at $32,150. 

To qualify for the state’s Pathways to Coverage program – a limited form of Medicaid expansion Gov. Brian Kemp rolled out in 2023 – adults must work, go to school, volunteer or do other qualifying activities for 80 hours a month. 

No other state has such a requirement. The upshot: a tiny fraction of eligible Georgians are covered. 

“If you take away the 6,500 people in Pathways, we have over 200,000 people living in the health insurance coverage gap, without access to affordable health care,” said Leah Chan, an analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. 

Expanding Medicaid to allow access for those earning up to 138% of the poverty level would add hundreds of thousands to the eligibility list. 

The federal government would cover 90% of the cost, but Kemp has consistently questioned the longevity of that funding stream, worried about the cost shifting to Georgia taxpayers. 

Grant Thomas, deputy commissioner with Georgia’s Department of Community Health, said at a recent hearing for SB 50 that Kemp’s approach is saving taxpayers money. 

“Because we only expanded to 100% of the federal poverty level, we were able to keep 816,000 Georgians on private insurance in which the state does not pay a dollar,” Thomas said. “So that’s 816,000 people we’re not paying 10% of those costs as a state had we fully expanded Medicaid.” 

Kemp has said he will petition the federal government to extend Pathways another fire years. His extension request will also ask for changes that would expand access a little by waiving the work requirement for impoverished parents of children 6 and under. 

The sweeping changes advocates seek aren’t part of his plan, and there aren’t great odds that lawmakers will force his hand. 

One of the four Republicans who signed onto SB 50 has since dropped off. That leaves three Republicans. There are 23 Democrats in the 56-member Senate, and even with those three there are not enough votes for passage. 

And it would still have to get through the House of Representatives, where no Republicans have signed onto similar legislation by Democrats 

Still, everyone knows about spiraling health-care costs, including residents in Republican-leaning rural areas, said Sen. David Lucas, D-Macon, the chief sponsor of SB 50. 

“Now rural legislators who are Republicans, they’ve got to consider who they represent and how they’re going to help the folks that they do represent,” he said. 

Sen. Russ Goodman, R-Cogdell, is one of the Republicans who signed SB 50. 

He said he doesn’t know that he would vote for the measure, but he worries about the finances of rural hospitals. 

It’s personal: his son was electrocuted at age 11. 

“He lived, but he had to be life flighted,” Goodman said. “If we didn’t have a rural hospital 12 miles from my house, I don’t know that he’d be here today. I live in a very, very, very rural area.” 

Goodman said he just wants the Senate to discuss Medicaid expansion. 

Sen. Carden Summers, R-Cordele, also signed SB 50 to have a discussion. He wants to talk about whether expansion would help rural hospitals. 

“We’ve had some hospitals on the verge of closing for 10 years,” he said. There are millions and millions of dollars available, he added. “Let’s tap into it.” 

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Georgia’s pending federal request for changes to the Pathways to Coverage program must go through a public comment period. The deadline to post a letter is Feb. 20. Mail to: Shawn Walker at the Georgia Department of Community Health, P.O. Box 1966, Atlanta, GA 30301-1966. Georgians can also participate in a live hearing via Zoom from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday.  

Georgia Senate votes to ban transgender athletes from school competitions

ATLANTA – The Republican-controlled Georgia Senate moved to purge transgender athletes from female teams Thursday in a near party-line vote.

Senate Bill 1 would prohibit public school and state college students from competing on teams that do not match the sex on their birth certificates. Private institutions that compete against them would be affected, too. 

Noncompliant public schools would risk loss of state funding and exposure to lawsuits. 

Public schools are already facing financial consequences at the federal level. 

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes. His “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order withholds federal funding from schools that do not “oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports … as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” 

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed its own bill with the same goal last month. The U.S. Senate has yet to consider it. 

On Thursday, Republican state senators said a state-level law is needed because of “male advantage” in sport. 

“Without a boundary around female sport that excludes male advantage, males would dominate every major sporting competition,” said Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, the chief sponsor of SB 1. 

Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, said it was “common sense” that males and females should not compete on the playing field. 

Democrats argued that Republicans are exploiting the issue from a “cynical, strategic” standpoint. 

They said transgender people comprise a tiny fraction of the population and are not a real threat to female athletes, especially younger children. 

“Why are you making these transgender girls into super girls that are just going to dominate everything?” said Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, D-Augusta. “They just want to play. They just want to participate. Have you ever thought about that?” 

Legislative Republicans have repeatedly pointed to a 2022 NCAA swim meet at Georgia Tech where a transgender student born male dominated the women’s competition. 

Legislation the General Assembly passed in 2022 empowering state athletic associations to ban transgender athletes has also eliminated such occurrences, but Republicans say a law is still needed. 

Democrats have taunted their GOP opponents over the fairness issue by pitching their own equity legislation. 

They have bills before the state House of Representatives and the Senate that seek to mandate equal funding for girls’ sports teams in schools. They also tried, and failed, to amend SB 1 with such a requirement, then derided Republicans over their vote against it. 

“My colleagues are not invested in truly leveling the playing field for girls’ sports,” said Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, a co-author of the failed amendment. 

SB 1 passed 35-17, with two Democrats crossing the aisle to support the measure. 

The measure now goes to the state House, where Republican leaders have their own legislation on the issue in House Bill 267. 

The support by the GOP leadership in both chambers hints at a likelihood that something will pass on the issue this year. Georgia would then join more than two dozen states with a similar prohibition on the participation of transgender athletes in school sports.

Legislation invites lawsuits against cities and schools that ignore immigration law

ATLANTA – A Georgia Senate committee advanced legislation Wednesday that would expose school districts and other governing bodies to lawsuits if they violate a state law that requires cooperation with federal officials and police on immigration enforcement.

The Republican-led Senate Public Safety Committee voted 5-3 to pass Senate Bill 21, which would waive sovereign immunity for violators. Sovereign immunity shields governments against lawsuits.

The legislation targets what has come to be known as “sanctuary city” policies — local rules against collaborating with federal immigration authorities.

The measure requires sheriffs to comply with federal immigration detainer requests, and a representative of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association said his group was neutral on that.

Mack Parnell with the Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition expressed support for the whole bill, but other advocates were opposed.

Megan Gordon, policy director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, warned that SB 21 could expose teachers to lawsuits if they follow federal court precedent that she said prohibits the collection and reporting of students’ immigration status.

Stephanie Tanner with the Georgia School Boards Association said she was unaware of any of the state’s 180 school districts having a policy that violates the state law on immigration. She said members were concerned about whether a mere accusation would be enough to open the door to lawsuits.

Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the chief co-sponsor of the bill, said a government would expose itself to a lawsuit if it violated state law, which already carries criminal penalties for noncompliance.

 “If they aren’t complying then they are running the risk of waiving sovereign immunity if you pass this bill,” Tillery said, adding that “it hits them in the pocketbook.”

Both chambers of Georgia General Assembly to focus on transgender athletes

ATLANTA – Sex and school sports will be a priority for both chambers of Georgia’s General Assembly this year, with House Speaker Jon Burns announcing Tuesday that his caucus will have its own version of legislation banning transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

Republicans in the state Senate have a head start on the issue.

A GOP-led Senate committee passed a bill last week that says student athletes in middle school through college can compete only on teams that match the sex on their birth certificates. At a news conference on Monday, Republican leaders of the Senate announced that the issue would be a top priority for them, something that was already clear from the title of their bill — Senate Bill 1.

Even so, Burns, R-Newington, said the House needed its own version.

“I’m not sure what’s in Senate Bill 1,” he said. “We’ve been focused on providing these safeguards, leveling these playing fields, working with good partners to perfect this legislation.”

The House version will be introduced by Rep. Josh Bonner, R-Fayetteville. It appears to differ significantly from the Senate’s in at least one key way: It would affect public school sports starting in kindergarten, Burns said, rather than in middle school.

Like SB 1, the House version would affect private schools that compete against public schools, he said.

In explaining the need for such legislation, Republicans have pointed to a much-publicized NCAA swim meet at Georgia Tech in 2022 when a transgender athlete dominated the women’s field. GOP lawmakers say that incident demonstrates that women and girls need to be protected from competing against men and boys — and from sharing locker rooms with them.

Democrats contend it was an isolated incident unlikely to recur and that Republicans are trying to score political points by promoting a solution in search of a nonexistent problem, particularly in K-12 schools.

Asked about that, Burns said he doesn’t disclose everything he knows, “but I know some situations where boys have competed against girls.”

Democrats introduced their own bills this week, also in the name of protecting female athletes.

But their legislation is focused on equal funding.

Senate Bill 41 and House Bill 221 target wiggle room in the current law governing gender equity in sports by proposing the deletion of the words “all reasonable efforts” from language requiring equal opportunities for girls.

The Democrats’ legislation would clarify that equity means “funds, facilities access, equipment, supplies, and other resources” and that schools would be in noncompliance if they failed to provide these.

It would allow lawsuits to enforce the provisions.

Burns said the GOP House legislation builds off a 2022 state law that authorized the Georgia High School Association to ban transgender athletes.

That law allowed athletic associations to “prohibit students whose gender is male from participating in athletic events that are designated for students whose gender is female.” The GHSA promptly did just that.

Both of the bills by Democrats would remove that language from the law.

Georgia Senate leadership reveals priorities for the year

ATLANTA – The Republicans in charge of Georgia’s state Senate say they plan to focus on a host of consistent conservative issues this year, from tax cuts to transgender athletes.

During this legislative session, their attention will also be absorbed by something that paid no heed to partisan lines: the massive hurricane that wreaked havoc on the state last fall.

“The families that have been devastated by Hurricane Helene have suffered generational losses and they need help,” Senate President Pro Tem John  Kennedy, said Monday. “We’re going to do all that we can, and we’re going to be creative.”

Kennedy praised the recovery funding that Gov. Brian Kemp placed in the budgets for the rest of this year and next. “But the truth is, there’s simply communities that are not going to recover if we don’t provide help,” the Macon Republican said.

Senate Republicans also expressed support for Kemp’s initiative to reduce payouts in lawsuits, known as tort reform.

Other priorities include Senate Bill 1, which would prohibit students from competing on teams or using locker rooms that do not match the sex on their birth certificates. It has already passed a legislative committee.

Steve Gooch, the Senate majority leader, placed that topic under a category of legislation he summed up as security-related.

Also under that umbrella: tax cuts (economic security), rejecting “woke” views (emotional security), and intercepting criminals and drugs that cross the U.S. border (physical security).

Gooch, R-Dahlonega, placed fentanyl in that last category.

He cited a new bill that would enhance penalties for trafficking the deadly drug.

It was introduced by Sen. Russ Goodman, R-Cogdell.

Goodman said a person caught trafficking 4 grams of fentanyl currently faces the same criminal penalty as someone trafficking cocaine.

The two shouldn’t be treated equally, he said. “I don’t think 4 grams of cocaine will kill 2,000 people, but 4 grams of fentanyl will.”