CNBC
By: Emma Newburger

A national battle over whether to extend public health insurance to low-income adults is at the center of a tightly contested gubernatorial race in Georgia, where hospitals and drug stores are closing across the Republican-controlled state’s rural southern and western counties. Georgia is one of eight states that opted not to expand Medicaid and will choose a new governor this year. Brian Kemp, the two-term GOP secretary of state, and Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic leader in the legislature, are competing in a race that mirrors the polarizing nature of health care in the country. Kemp opposes broadening the scope of Medicaid, while Abrams is for it. Medicaid expansion is a key feature of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

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In Georgia and the seven other nonexpansion states, more than one-third of low-income adults living in rural areas and small towns are uninsured, according to a recent study by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

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Kemp has supported the lawsuit brought by 20 Republican-led states and backed by the Trump administration, which would allow insurance companies to stop covering people with pre-existing medical conditions. Advocacy groups for health care and rural hospitals in Georgia have condemned the lawsuit. Kemp’s plan would not reduce Georgia’s growing uninsured rate, according to Joan Alker, director of the Georgetown study.

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