Contact: Diana Eckles
President, Cobb Democratic Women
Phone 770-428-0887
diana.eckles@cobbdemocraticwomen.org
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Medicaid Expansion Campaign Gets Local Support

Marietta, GA December 18, 2013:

Today at the Capitol, the Georgia Federation of Democratic Women (GFDW) is kicking off a state-wide campaign to convince Governor Nathan Deal to accept the $40.5 billion dollars of Medicaid expansion funds to help ALL Georgians get health insurance coverage. The GFDW’s local chapter, Cobb Democratic Women, and the Cobb County Democratic Committee, are announcing their support of this initiative. They have been reaching out to their members and other community groups to gather signatures of support for Medicaid expansion. These letters and postcards will be personally delivered to the Governor’s office by GFDW in January.

Georgia ranks 5th in the nation for having the most uninsured residents, and 4th in the nation for having the most uninsured kids. With rankings like those, Governor Deal has the opportunity to make a significant improvement in the health outcomes of this state, yet he has refused to allow increased Medicaid funding into Georgia to cover approximately 650,000 low-income, uninsured residents.

Governor Deal has claimed that it is too expensive to expand Medicaid. However, the expansion of Medicaid comes at a very minimal cost to Georgia--it is fully funded by the Federal Government the first year, and then 90% covered by the Federal Government for the next 10 years. Actually, the expansion is expected to be an economic stimulus to our state, bringing around 70,000 new jobs to Georgia as people who have long been denied healthcare are able to get preventative care and take their sick children to the doctor’s office instead of the emergency room.

We encourage everyone to ask Governor Deal to accept the $40.5 billion in Medicaid expansion funds for the health of our residents and for the economic health of our state.