Hi, Atlanta!

In the six years I’ve covered Georgia health, legislators have passed a landmark mental health parity bill, established the state’s own health insurance exchange, and decided to forgo Medicaid expansion, instead establishing work requirements for the low-income insurance program. Georgia’s unique approach to health policy has fueled heated debates locally and put the state at the center of national conversations. 

Republicans and Democrats often agree on identifying Georgia’s health care problems. But they don’t always agree on how to fix them. That was made clear during a recent cross-party conversation between two state legislators from the Augusta area. 

Republican state Rep. Mark Newton, an emergency medicine physician, and Democratic state Sen. Harold Jones spoke at last week’s Healthcare Unscrambled event, sponsored by nonprofit Georgians for a Healthy Future. 

Newton and Jones said Georgia’s 2022 mental health parity reform bill was a landmark moment in state health policy. They lauded the $25 million in fines the state Department of Insurance leveled this month against insurers who violated the law’s requirement that mental and physical health be covered equally, with Newton saying the fines should be even higher. They said they would like to see the state expand its mental health workforce and access so people can get the mental health care they need. 

A second area of agreement is that Georgians need access to health care. “We want everybody to have coverage. That goes without saying,” Newton said during the event. 

Jones added to that, noting that in his 11 years in the state Legislature, he’d seen Republicans warm to the position that government has a role to play in health care. 

The parties differ, though, in how to improve access. Republicans like Newton emphasize that insurance alone doesn’t guarantee access, especially in rural areas with provider shortages and where people must drive long distances to get care. Newton said the state needs to expand its provider workforce and consider bolstering support for federally qualified health clinics that provide safety-net care to uninsured people. 

Democrats like Jones say the state would be able to cover more people if it expanded Medicaid. Jones also emphasized that the rollback of premium tax credits established in 2021 will limit people’s access to care as Georgians decide not to sign up for or pay for Affordable Care Act insurance due to higher costs this year. 

Both said they appreciate the infusion of  federal funds under the Rural Health Transformation Program. Georgia is slated to get $219 million in the first year of the five-year federal initiative. But those time-limited funds may not be enough to solve all the state’s problems, Newton said. 

The program caps funding for payment to rural hospitals at 15%. Newton said he is working on a plan to find $125 million to $200 million to be “targeted toward some of our most needy health systems, the ones that are on the cusp of failing, or having to close an OB unit to be sustainable.” But he recognized finding those dollars in the state budget will “be a heavy lift.”

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