Abrams state health plan focuses on premiums, access; Kemp fires back
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams rolled out a multipronged approach to improving Georgia health care Monday, including a familiar push for Medicaid expansion and a new call for stabilizing insurance premiums for consumers.
Abrams also advocated for steps to lower Georgia’s infant and maternal mortality rates, along with supporting access to reproductive health care.
The announcement continued Abrams’ focus on health care as a leading issue in her race against the Republican nominee for governor, Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Her health care push is part of a national trend of Democratic candidates promoting such issues in their campaigns.
The premium-stabilizing proposal, Abrams said, would come through a federal waiver in conjunction with the Affordable Care Act. Alaska and Minnesota are two states that have reduced insurance premiums for individuals and families through “reinsurance.”
Her viewpoints on health care contrast sharply with those of Kemp. He is against Medicaid expansion, and supports the lawsuit by 20 attorneys general – including Chris Carr of Georgia – to overturn the Affordable Care Act, also known as the ACA or Obamacare. That suit is currently being heard in federal court in Texas.
Kemp said through a statement Monday that Abrams “has an extreme plan to nationalize health care and stick hardworking Georgians with the bill.”
Abrams emphasized her goal of improving access to health care services in an interview with GHN on Monday.
That access, she said, “is essential for families and communities to be successful.”
She said that besides helping a person’s physical and mental health, access to care helps rural communities seeking to add jobs. Without a local hospital or physicians, rural economies can’t thrive, she said.
The reinsurance programs that Abrams cited are created by states to stabilize premiums for people buying coverage on their own, by partially reimbursing insurers for their highcost claims.
States pursuing this option must get federal permission through a “waiver” proposal.
Seven states — Alaska, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Wisconsin — have received approval of their reinsurance proposals from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Bill Custer, a health insurance expert at Georgia State University, said that under reinsurance, insurers get a cap on their financial risk. “You would expect that some insurers may lower premi- ums” when assuming less risk, he said.
The federal government, in order to give approval, must perceive that it won’t cost more money if a state pursues such a program, Custer noted.
“Georgia will have to come up with its own approach,” Abrams said of her reinsurance initiative.
The former state House minority leader also urged that Georgia adopt a state version of the federal earned income tax credit for low-income families. She said rural health care should be buttressed through an expansion of broadband and telehealth services, and by having more medical residency slots for young doctors.
She also said she will protect the ACA provisions that ensure no one can be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition like asthma, cancer and diabetes.
More than half of Georgia counties do not have an OB/GYN provider, and 64 lack a pediatrician, Abrams said. “A holistic approach to increasing access to high-quality care is needed to provide better outcomes for our mothers and babies,” she said, backing homevisit programs so pregnant women can more easily access specialists.
Medicaid expansion is the primary solution to the rural health crisis, she said. “We just have to have the political will.” She estimated that it would extend coverage to nearly 500,000 Georgians and generate more than 50,000 jobs in the state. Georgia Health News, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, tracks state medical issues on its website georgiahealthnews.com.