Peach Tree Times

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga) asked legislators in his home state to implement a Medicaid expansion intended to help older Georgia residents, home health care workers and lessen racial disaparities that hurt all Americans.

Black and Latino adults represent more than half of the Medicaid coverage gap. The 2.2 million who were uninsured in 2019 were from very diverse groups such as essential workers and parents caring for children. Those individuals had something in common: they live in states that have not adopted the Medicaid expansion element of the Affordable Care Act, Portside reported.

“This week’s @SenateAging hearing reaffirmed just how important Medicaid expansion is to our older Georgians, as well as home health care workers. I’m urging Georgia state leaders to take the necessary steps to implement this common sense measure,” Warnock wrote in a June 18 tweet.

When it was made into law, the Affordable Care Act provided Medicaid coverage to more adults, including those whose income were up to 138% of the poverty line and provided subsidies for those who had higher incomes. Not all states expanded Medicaid, Portside reported. The article said 60% of those who were in the Medicaid coverage gap were not white, and that half of those 2.2 million individuals worked in 2019 while facing other barriers to insurance coverage and consistent work.

The data collected by Portside was gathered pre-COVID-19 and there may be more people in the coverage gap than reported.

In 2019, more than half a million essential workers could have been helped by a Medicaid coverage expansion, including 138,000 healthcare workers and 143,000 grocery and retail workers, Portside reported. In Warnock’s home state, more than 40% of those in the Medicaid coverage gap are Black.