LISTEN: A new report from the Commonwealth Fund ranks Georgia’s health care system 45th overall in the nation. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge reports on the findings.
A new report from the Commonwealth Fund ranks Georgia’s health care system 45th overall in the nation.
The ranking looked at health care access, affordability and disease prevention, said Sara Collins, the senior scholar and vice president for health care coverage and access and tracking health system performance at The Commonwealth Fund.
Among other things, the report found higher rates of breast cancer deaths in Georgia than in the rest of the country.
Like other diseases, breast cancer is considered a mostly preventable form of mortality because screening is available.
"If you don't have access to providers because you don't have health insurance coverage, it is nearly impossible to get regular cancer screens," Collins said. "I think if Georgia were to improve on its coverage rates, it might also see improvements in both screening of key cancers and also mortality rates from those cancers."
Insurance coverage is essential for a health system to perform at a high level, so the uninsured rate drives Georgia down in the rankings.
Georgia ranks 49th in the share of adults ages 19 to 64 who are uninsured, which is associated with its low rank on cost-related access problems, Collins said.
"People still have a lot of problems getting the health care that they need because they can't afford it," she said.
Since its launch in July 2023, less than 3% of those eligible for the state's Pathways to Coverage — or 7,000 Georgians — enrolled in health care coverage using a Medicaid waiver.
The administrative burden is preventing people from enrolling and is leaving more people without access to health care, Whitney Griggs with Georgians for a Healthy Future said.
"Lots of folks who are eligible lose their coverage because they run into some sort of an administrative roadblock trying to submit their qualifying activity or prove their address or even just fill out the basic application," Griggs said.
The Commonwealth Fund estimates that, between federal and state dollars, they've spent about $58 million, meaning the per person cost of that work requirement far exceeds what it would have cost if Georgia had expanded its Medicaid program.
Congress is considering similar changes to work requirements as it seeks to make cuts to Medicaid.
"A lot of the gains that Georgia has made on coverage are really at risk because of the expiration of the premium tax credits for the marketplaces and because of additional of the House and Senate reconciliation bills that would actually make pretty significant cuts in the marketplaces, making it less affordable, harder to enroll," Collins said. "So, Georgia's relative ranking relative to other states will likely be at risk because of those changes if they were to go into effect."
