Kemp on Medicaid expansion in 2025: 'I'm in the no camp.'

ATHENS – Gov. Brian Kemp said he opposes an effort to expand Medicaid next year, even as a growing number of Republicans say they’re open to a debate on allowing Georgia to join the 40 other states that have boosted their programs for low-income residents.

The governor told Politically Georgia during a live event Thursday that he’s concerned that expansion will “increase your short-term costs and your long-term costs” by shifting hundreds of thousands of people from private-sector insurance to Medicaid.

“That’s just not good policy. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. I’m in the no camp. I am supportive of what we did. We need some more time to continue to implement and get people to sign up on Pathways.”

It was a reference to Kemp’s Georgia Pathways to Coverage Program, which expanded Medicaid eligibility for poor people who work at least 80 hours per month or meet academic or other requirements.

“My position is to continue on the policies that the General Assembly voted on, in a bipartisan way, early in my administration and the Biden Administration has tried to block,” Kemp said.

The Pathways program has drawn tepid interest, with about 3,500 uninsured applicants through March out of an estimated 370,000 who are eligible. It has cost taxpayers at least $26 million, with more than 90% going toward administrative and consulting costs.

The governor has blamed President Joe Biden for the program’s problems, and he recently filed a federal lawsuit seeking a three-year extension of a federal waiver that authorizes Pathways before it expires next year.

Kemp’s remarks were the strongest yet against a Medicaid expansion push backed by senior Republicans in the Legislature who want the state to consider a “private option” modeled after a program adopted by GOP-controlled Arkansas.

They’ll need Kemp’s support. Although the Georgia Legislature voted in 2014 to give itself authority to expand Medicaid’s rolls, the governor would still have the final say on whether to sign the measure into law or veto it.

Kemp acknowledged he helped squelch legislation this year that would have allowed the state to purchase private health insurance plans for some low-income Georgians.

It failed to pass a committee in March after a suspenseful debate, though two Republicans joined Democrats to vote for the bill. Kemp said lawmakers didn’t account for the fallout of the expansion, including the $580 million price tag.

“Look, we were fine with the Legislature having a conversation about that. That’s certainly up to them. I was respectful of that,” Kemp said. But he said they crossed a line when “they start talking about going to the floor and into a vote.”