There are 31 million Americans who have health coverage through the Affordable Care Act — link. Of those, 11.3 million are enrolled through ACA marketplace plans and another 14.8 million through the Medicaid expansion.
Unfortunately, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius the Supreme Court ruled making the Medicaid expansion mandatory was unconstitutional. The result was states could opt-out of the Medicaid expansion which currently 12 states have done. If these 12 states would opt-in, it is estimated another 2.8 million people would qualify. An additional 2.1 million people would benefit from lower out of pocket costs being eligible for Medicaid instead of signing up for subsidized ACA marketplace plans.
Georgia is one of the 12 states with Republican Governors that did not expand Medicaid. In January Democrats won both GA Senate special elections giving us control of the U.S. Senate. Our two new Democratic Senators — Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock - have wasted no time working on helping the half million Georgia residents screwed out of the Medicaid expansion. Many of them work in the low wage hospitality industry.
Senators Ossoff and Warnock and Tammy Baldwin want to create a "Medicaid look-a-like" program
that would provide the same benefits as Medicaid and not charge any premiums or out of pocket costs.
That’s called representing your constituents, especially the estimated 500,000 Georgia residents who would be eligible for Medicaid- link. It’s called seeing a real need and working hard as a legislator to meet it. It’s pragmatic politics. I can see this bill actually passing the House and the Senate. Multiple news articles say this could be in the Democrats next reconciliation bill.
Georgia is now a purple state. We need to keep both seats. One of them — Raphael Warnock’s — is up next November. Georgia’s two new Democratic Senators are proving themselves to be very effective Senators who actually get something done.
