Poll Shows Support for Medicaid Expansion in Georgia
A slight plurality of Georgian voters believe the state should adopt one of the key measures under President Obama’s health reform law.
According to a new statewide poll conducted by New York-based ABT-SRBI, more Georgia voters are in favor of expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act than opposed.
Health policy expert Tim Sweeney of the Georgia Budget and Policy institute says expanding the state Medicaid rolls through the health reform law makes financial sense for the state.
“If the state was going to try to cover some of these folks with all state dollars, if we tried to do this all on our own, it would be substantially more expensive than if we take up the Medicaid expansion,” said Sweeney. “It’s really as good of a deal as the state can get to address this problem.”
Medicaid is the joint state-federal program that provides health insurance to the poor and disabled. The expansion would add more than 600,000 low-income Georgians to the program beginning in 2014.
However, Governor Nathan Deal this summer joined several Republican governors who have vowed to opt out of the expansion. Deal says the state simply can’t afford it.
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