The work of a commission examining options to provide health care to low-income Georgians got underway last week.
Chaired by the President and CEO of the Georgia Hospital Association, the state’s Comprehensive Health Coverage Commission consists of health policy experts and health care providers. The commission’s chair, Caylee Noggle, stressed that the group should avoid the politics of health care.
"Political conversations will continue around the options that we document, but our job is simply to explore and document them," she said. "Policymakers will ultimately debate and decide what, if any, such options are suitable for Georgia."
And, she said, those possible solutions won’t be simple ones.
"No single solution exists that will simultaneously provide greater coverage options to Georgians, solve our workforce challenges, incent physicians to practice in rural and underserved areas, increase provider reimbursement rates and improve accessibility in a manner that's fiscally feasible," Noggle said in her opening remarks.
Noggle seemed to indirectly address one widely-proposed solution – the expansion of Medicaid. That’s an option that 40 states, as well as Washington, DC, have pursued. It’s also something that Governor Brian Kemp and Republican lawmakers have consistently turned down.
"I'm certain that we'll examine what other states are doing in this space, but I would encourage us to keep Georgia at the forefront and look more broadly at solutions that will work here or create new innovative options specific to our needs," she said."
Members of the commission also heard from Lynette Rhodes, Chief Health Policy Officer for the state’s Department of Community Health. She told commissioners that the federal Medicaid program leaves lots of room for states to adapt it.
"The program is administered by the states within very broad federal guidelines, and that's a critical point for this commission to take away because, in essence, there is no one-size-fits-all," she said. "Each individual state operates their Medicaid program differently."
Rhodes talked about Georgia Pathways, the state’s alternative to Medicaid expansion. So far, enrollment has been lackluster, with fewer than 5,000 Georgians in the program, which state officials estimated could cover up to 100,000 low-income Georgians.
A report by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute earlier this month said that some 38% of applicants have yet to have their applications processed and that just one in five applicants are accepted for coverage.
Georgia Pathways is the only program of its kind in the country, and its requirement that recipients spend at least 80 hours per month in so-called “eligible activities” like work or school has caused controversy.
This article was corrected to reflect Lynette Rhodes' title.
