Governor’s health care plan gets mixed reviews
ATLANTA — Gratitude, anger, confusion and caution greeted Gov. Brian Kemp’s new health care waiver proposals this week with the launch of public discussions.
Kemp’s aides detailed the proposals, meant to help thousands of Georgians get health insurance, at a joint hearing Tuesday afternoon of the Senate and House Health committees. Listeners began to decide whether they liked that it would make important progress — or mourned that it fell short in dealing with opioid addiction, maternal health, mental illness and other top state priorities.
Or, sometimes, both. “Since we’ve seen over the last few years that Medicaid expansion has not been a priority at all for the majority [Republicans], then we’ve got to have something,” said state Rep. Dexter Sharper, D-Valdosta, who voted for the legislation enabling Kemp to design the limited programs, Senate Bill 106. Sharper said it could insure more people and help them have healthier lives, and “I can’t sit here and say no, I’m not going to support that.”
He added: “But honestly, in my opinion, even if you put this waiver into action, you’re still going to have a great number of uninsured people in Georgia that will still put us in a position where we will still have higher premiums and higher health care costs. That’s my opinion. Basically, we’re putting a Band-Aid on it for a while.”
Sharper’s hope is that the state will take further steps in the near future.
One thing the lawmakers all had in common: They didn’t understand all the details yet.
Kemp’s health adviser, Ryan Loke, and Georgia Department of Community Health Chief Policy Officer Blake Fulenwider briefed the legislators on the plans that Kemp presented to the public last Thursday and Monday.
The most ambitious set of proposals affect the private insurance market for individual customers, including the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchange. It would set aside more than $360 million in state and federal dollars to subsidize private insurance claims, an initiative that could end up saving higher-income policyholders hundreds of dollars a month in premiums, especially in rural areas.