Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is taking the lead on health care reforms, creating the Health Care Reform Task Force, which had its first public meeting last week.
Hundreds of thousands of Georgians stand to lose their health care or face higher costs to stay insured. Cagle has made it clear he plans to take “a free market approach,” which inevitably means tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy, and higher costs for everyone else.
At the task force’s first meeting, only two people were invited to give testimony, both from conservative, D.C.-based groups.
Let’s back up a minute.
Georgia is considering major changes to health care policy, both on a federal and state level.
But right now, leadership is diving in to try to determine how the state can best screw over poor and working class families instead of taking time to evaluate exactly what even is the scope and nature of the problem.
So here’s a different (albeit make-believe) approach to this task force:
Major changes to federal health care policy and, importantly, funding are on their way. Georgia leaders know they are going to need to adapt state policy if they want to prevent disruptions to people’s health coverage and effectively address Georgian’s health care needs.
The task force decides they are going to evaluate what’s working (and needs to be preserved) and what’s not (and needs to be changed) with Georgia’s existing health care policy BEFORE trying to evaluate possible policy solutions.
They first focus on learning about key areas and key populations, to make sure they ultimately develop solutions that best meet the needs of all Georgians. Community stakeholders are included who bring first person expertise. The task force covers areas like: rural health care, folks with disabilities who need long term care, women’s reproductive health care, and the special needs of marginalized communities (like the LGBT population and refugees).
The task force works collaboratively with leaders and stakeholders from around the state. AFTER learning about the scope of health care needs in this state, the task force will actually has the knowledge they need to evaluate the merits of different solutions.
But that’s not what the task force is doing. As a result, we aren’t going to get a thoughtful approach centered on the actual needs of Georgians.
The American Health Care Act (aka the AHCA, as opposed to “Obamacare” which is the ACA) is promising tax cuts for the wealthy and more funds directed towards insurance companies’ bottom line. The AHCA is proposing changes that will make health insurance (which is currently the first step to getting health care) much less affordable for many citizens. The AJC has a great interactive map of how health tax credits will change under the AHCA, and it does not look good for low income, rural or older Georgians.
Meanwhile, the AHCA is also likely going to result in a restructure of the Medicaid program, which provides care for many low-income Georgians. Policymakers and health care experts across the political spectrum are worried the these changes will leave states like Georgia scrambling to get enough money to fund the program.
Georgia notoriously ranks poorly on measures of health. We have shorter life spans than people in many other states, and Georgians are dying or facing life-threatening complications from completely preventable illnesses. And now, the Trump administration is backing a proposal that will make accessing health insurance (let alone health care) more expensive for low-income Georgians.
We shouldn’t have to make believe that lawmakers are invested in studying the health care needs of Georgians and developing policy based around making health care as accessible and affordable for anyone who needs it. But that’s our current reality.
We need policymakers who are invested in the health of Georgians and do more than trot out conservative talking points when it comes to health care reform.
I’ve just received this email/link, March 25th. Yesterday the AHCA or as I like to call it, the “Trump Doesn’t Care Act” failed to get the votes needed. So now where do we go? How do we insist our legislators work to improve the ACA rather than force issues to let it “go up in flames” as our not-so-caring President suggests? I think the ACA was a first step in the most sensible direction but it didn’t go far enough.
I’m one who suffers from the changes made by Georgia’s stance on the ACA having to purchase insurance from the marketplace because my husband’s small company could no longer afford to offer employer-based insurance. I’ve had to give up my doctors and settle for what I consider to be lower quality health care to the tune of nearly $1400 a month for useless coverage and needless to say, we never come close to our deductible. Furthermore, to get the medical care I need, I have to pay additionally out of pocket for doctor visits, lab work, and prescriptions.
The ACA now needs to be fixed.
I don’t agree, look at that: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2016/10/Policymakers_Guide_to_Basic_Income.pdf
I’m a new widow. My husband served in both the Army and Navy, deploying to Iraq and during the Japanese Tsunami. My life and my children’s lives have been dedicated to his career. both have IEPs and their futures hang on the right educational placement. We moved to our GA neighborhood for cost and quality schools. I pay full price for my plan with BCBS on the marketplace as I don’t make enough for breaks and there’s no medicaid here, which…makes sense? Either way, I make it work…but not BCBS is gone and the two crumby insurers left on the marketplace have little to no providers. I have looked into plan outside the marketplace and haven’t found any! I have to start from scratch with our lives and mine in particular, and grieving has wracked my body and hormones that need stabilizing, but now I see I will not have access to reliable care. I can’t believe Georgians stand by for this in their leadership. This state is politically backwards and it doesn’t seem like people really speak out. I come from a red state, it’s not solely about it being red, it just about being inept. Many red states have managed to make this work.