ATHENS, Ga. — Nominees for governor spoke at the Chamber of Commerce Congressional Luncheon in Athens Wednesday. They spoke to Georgia business leaders about their plans if elected.
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Keisha Lance Bottoms, the democratic governor nominee, and Rick Jackson, the Republican nominee, discussed a hot-button issue in this race: health care.
Both support expanding healthcare, just in different ways.
Former Atlanta mayor, Bottoms, talked a lot about how she thinks Medicaid expansion is crucial to Georgians and their health care. She also said the expansion would benefit the survival of rural hospitals.
“There’s no single community that you go into in this state that hadn’t been touched by our refusal not to expand Medicaid,” Bottoms said on the stage. “From hospitals in the metro area to hospitals in our rural communities.”
Jackson, CEO of Jackson Health care, said he understands Medicaid from a health care standpoint and believes in “intelligent” expansion.
State Republicans have long opposed fully expanding Medicaid, but Jackson believes it can be done through federal block grants. However, he says his ultimate goal is to help recipients off it altogether.
“I want to be able to give an opportunity to every Medicaid recipient to be trained and get a job and get off of Medicaid,” Jackson said. “I’m not going to measure our state by how many people are on Medicaid. I want to measure how many people are on commercial insurance.”
Governor Brain Kemp was in Athens, showing a full endorsement of the Republican nominee.
Kemp defended his opposition to Medicaid expansion and government-run health care. He said the rate of Medicaid spending has been twice what normal budget increases have been.
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