Today, Governor Brian Kemp, joined by Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King, Department of Community Health Commissioner Russel Carlson, and healthcare stakeholders, took part in a roundtable focused on the current and future state of healthcare in Georgia, specifically regarding the Georgia Access and Georgia Pathways programs.
The Governor’s remarks from the event are below. The full roundtable can be viewed below.
The group also had an opportunity to hear testimonial from Luke, a small business owner and member of Georgia Pathways to Coverage since 2023. You can hear him share his experience below.
Remarks made by Governor Brian P. Kemp
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us here today. When I first ran for governor, I promised to put hardworking Georgians first, not just when it came to economic opportunity, education, and public safety, but also healthcare access and quality.
Out of that promise came the Patients First Act, which we passed with the help of the General Assembly and many others. That landmark legislation opened the door for my administration to pursue innovative, Georgia-centric policies to tackle our unique health needs head on.
I’m proud to say we rejected the top-down, one-size-fits-all approach some promote and instead chose to treat Georgians as individuals with different strengths, challenges, and health circumstances.
Since day one, we’ve prioritized increasing access and affordability to the care you and others in the medical profession provide by launching Georgia Access under the Office of the Insurance Commissioner. That was followed much more recently by the launch of Georgia Pathways under the Department of Community Health and aided by the Department of Human Services.
The numbers speak for themselves. To date, these two programs alone are providing health coverage for over 714,000 Georgians who fall under 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
To be clear, the rosiest projections for traditional Medicaid expansion estimate 500,000 people under 138 percent of the federal poverty limit would be eligible. Not actually enrolled – just eligible.
Thanks to Georgia Pathways and Access, we’ve beaten that number by over 200,000 Georgians – and counting. But there are key differences between Georgia’s approach and traditional Medicaid expansion.
1. Georgians enrolling in private sector insurance through Georgia Access enjoy better coverage that fits their individual needs.
2. Georgia Access enrollees have more options to choose from.
3. And third, coverage gained through Georgia Access pays our healthcare providers a better reimbursement rate for the care they provide than Medicaid.
I’m also happy to report that enrollment in the private sector exchange has grown from 460,000 just five years ago to well over 1.3 million Georgians today. That includes 400,000 Georgians who were previously on Medicaid and were provided the opportunity to enroll through Georgia Access in a commercial plan during the redetermination process.
I want to make sure our friends in the media today hear this: through Georgia Access, 400,000 Georgians who were previously on Medicaid now have private sector insurance that provides better coverage, with more options, while saving taxpayer dollars.
But the good news doesn’t stop there. When I first took office, no county in this state had more than two health insurance carriers. Today, 87 percent of counties have three or more carriers.
And thanks to our hard work and the careful investments we’ve made over the last six years through our reinsurance program, premiums are down an average of 11 percent statewide and 29 percent in rural areas.
Here are some other stats you probably haven’t heard reported: • Georgia currently has the fourth largest individual market for healthcare coverage in the entire country. • When we first started talking about Pathways in the beginning of my administration, we knew over 240,000 individual Georgians could be eligible for the program. • Today, that number has decreased to a little under 168,000 – not because we’ve made it harder to get onto the program, but because more Georgians are employed and have private healthcare coverage.
I want to emphasize a key point for everyone here today: the goal of Georgia Pathways is not – and has never been – to keep hundreds of thousands of Georgians on government-run healthcare forever. I believe that approach is wrong for Georgia – and fails to actually improve the lives and wellbeing of the people who elected us.
Georgia Pathways was meant to be exactly that – a pathway to an education, a job, a career, and a better life without government assistance. Because I want more Georgians to have healthcare coverage that fits their needs and empowers them to change their lives for the better.
I want people like Luke Seaborn, who you’ll hear from today, to have a hand up to achieve their dreams and provide for their loved ones. I want more families to be able to make ends meet and have one less thing to worry about when they sit around the dinner table. And the truth is we are achieving our goal.
We have covered more Georgians with better insurance at lower costs thanks to the Patients First Act and Georgia Pathways and Access. Those facts are clear and undeniable – even if Democrats and their activist allies in the media don’t want to admit it. They may want Georgia to look more like California or Washington D.C… but as long as I’m governor, we are not looking in the rearview mirror.
Finally, today I’m joined by some of the leaders at the forefront of this progress. Before I turn it over to one of those partners – Commissioner King – I want to thank him and his team for working with us in the lead up to the State Based Exchange that will launch later this year.
Last year, I signed SB 65 – sponsored by Senator Ben Watson – which authorized the creation of the state based health insurance exchange. This platform will enable hardworking Georgians to compare their health insurance options more easily so they can make the decision that best fits their family’s needs. And just this past week, we received approval to move forward with the launch of that exchange this November.
Congratulations, again, Commissioner King on this milestone, and please tell us more about your team’s success with Georgia Access.
