Jessica Schubel: “Republicans enacted a bill that cuts a trillion dollars from health insurance programs that hardworking Americans are enrolled in, and they did it all to give rich people and big corporations more money.”
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Defend America Action is releasing a new report highlighting the devastating health care crisis Donald Trump and Republicans have created for Georgia. After Republicans killed the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, premiums rose an average of nearly 200% for over 1.4 million Georgians, with nearly 350,000 dropping their ACA coverage entirely. The GOP’s Medicaid cuts will push 721,000 Georgians off their coverage altogether, and 15 Georgia hospitals and clinics are either closing, cutting services, or at risk of closure.
Defend America Action also hosted a press call on Wednesday with Georgia State Representative Sam Park, former Special Assistant to President Biden for Health Care Jessica Schubel, and Nora Pullen, a Georgia resident who relied on Affordable Care Act tax credits, to discuss Donald Trump’s health care crisis and its consequences for Georgians.
“Georgia Republicans didn’t just fail to expand Medicaid; they made it harder to do so, tying it to legislative approval from a gerrymandered majority,” said Georgia State Representative Sam Park. “That failure to put the health and lives of Georgians before politics has consequences that you can measure. Georgia today has one of the highest uninsured rates in the country, some of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates, and a life expectancy that lags behind much of the developed world.”
“Republicans enacted a bill that cuts a trillion dollars from health insurance programs that hardworking Americans are enrolled in, and they did it all to give rich people and big corporations more money,” said former Special Assistant to President Biden for Health Care Jessica Schubel. “Over a million fewer people bought health insurance coverage last year on the ACA marketplace in Georgia alone. Nearly 350,000 people have already lost coverage or dropped their coverage because they couldn’t afford it.”
“Because I’m self-employed, I’ve relied on the ACA for my health care,” said Nora Pullen. “I found myself in the position when renewal came up, once the subsidies evaporated, that I would either have to pay triple for a similar gold level plan, which was completely out of my budget, or the cheapest option I had access to was still going to be twice as expensive than I was paying, and it had incredibly high deductibles.”
A recording of the press call is available here. Defend America Action’s new Georgia health care report is available here.
# # #