Update to an earlier report: This article includes new information about a story we previously covered. Read our earlier report.
Georgia Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms says expanding Medicaid will be her top governing priority. She plans to look for state budget money to fund the expansion and wants to end Georgia Pathways to Coverage, the state’s work-based Medicaid program.
Bottoms laid out those goals at her first news conference since Election Day, held Friday at the Georgia Capitol. She also named the cost of living, health care access and public-education funding as priorities. Bottoms, a Democrat, said hundreds of thousands of Georgians lack health insurance, pointing to Georgia’s Medicaid approach and increasingly expensive Affordable Care Act premiums.
Pathways requires participants to work, volunteer or take classes for 80 hours each month. A federal Government Accountability Office report found high overhead and low enrollment in the program. Bottoms said she wants to replace it with a system that provides better access to affordable health care.
Her funding search comes as Georgia has spent much of its previous budget surplus, according to the report. The money has gone in part to taxpayer rebates and income-tax rate cuts, along with temporary suspensions of the motor fuel excise tax. Bottoms said tax breaks for data centers—and other matters involving data centers—will be considered as she reviews the budget. Gov. Brian Kemp has raised the possibility of a special session this year focused on the budget.
Bottoms said Kemp called her on Election Day and spoke with her again the following day. She said he offered to assist with the transition to the governor’s office and described their personal relationship as cordial despite their policy differences.
She also said she views her election as a historic milestone: she will be the first Black woman elected governor in the United States.
Victoria Sterling
News Now Georgia
