Georgia Touts Its Medicaid Experiment as a Success. The Numbers Tell a Different Story.
“In January, standing before a cluster of television cameras on the steps of the state Capitol, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp promoted his experiment in Medicaid reform as a showcase for fellow conservatives seeking to overhaul safety net benefits around the country.
“What we are doing is working,” Kemp boasted about Georgia Pathways to Coverage. The federally subsidized health insurance program is supposed to cover nearly a quarter-million low-income Georgians who can prove they are working, studying or volunteering.
What the governor did not disclose, however, was that his program is not achieving two primary goals: enrolling people in health care and getting them to work, according to an examination by The Current and ProPublica. The findings were confirmed recently by an independent evaluation commissioned by the state that has yet to be publicly released.
As of the end of 2024, the Pathways program has cost federal and state taxpayers more than $86.9 million, three-quarters of which has gone to consultants, The Current and ProPublica found. The state asserted that costs increased because of a two-year delay to the program’s launch.
A mere 6,500 participants have enrolled 18 months into the program, approximately 75% fewer than the state had estimated for Pathways’ first year. Thousands of others never finished applying, according to the state’s data, as reports of technical glitches mounted. The state also never hired enough people to help residents sign up or to verify that participants are actually working, as Georgia required, federal officials and state workers said.
As a result, the Kemp administration has quietly rolled back a core tenet it heralded when it launched Pathways as an alternative to government entitlement programs for poor people that many conservatives deride as handouts and the nanny state. Rather than verifying that people are working every month, Georgia is confirming that participants meet these requirements only at the time of enrollment and upon their annual renewal, the state said in January.”
Read more at ProPublica.