A commission created in 2024 by Gov. Brian Kemp and state lawmakers to evaluate health care challenges facing low-income Georgians has not met this year, despite the drastic changes debated in Washington that culminated earlier this month with the passage of massive health-care spending cuts in President Trump’s historic tax-and-spending bill.
Yet the chair of the panel formally known as the Comprehensive Commission on Health Care is set to release a report next week that multiple commission members said reflects the lack of urgency over what many health-care advocates see as a disastrous year ahead for public health as the spending cuts take effect.
Caylee Noggle
The commission was created to discuss, among other problems, the state’s high rate of uninsured adults, the financial threats to rural hospitals and the growing costs of health care. The commissioners, who are all volunteers, were appointed by Republican and Democratic state House and Senate leaders. The panel’s chair, Caylee Noggle, was appointed by Kemp.
During the year, Noggle repeatedly told members of the commission, which includes some of the state’s top health care leaders, practitioners and policy researchers, that the “complexity” of the congressional discussions that culminated in slashing federal safety-net benefits was why she decided not to convene the state group, according to two members of the commission and an email reviewed by The Current.
Noggle’s decision follows the lead of state Republican leaders who have decided against a special session of the legislature to discuss the repercussions of the so-called big, beautiful bill for state spending. The Current has previously reported that federal cuts threaten one of Gov. Kemp’s signature initiatives — rural broadband expansion — and lawmakers have raised concerns about frozen money for public schools and health research.
Dr. Harry Heiman, who was appointed by the minority leader of the Senate to a seat on the health-care commission, said he believes that Noggle’s decision not to convene the panel made a mockery of the role that state lawmakers had for the group.
“I take my role in the commission seriously and I believe that our work can protect lives,” Heiman said. “But it’s preposterous to publish a report on behalf of a commission that hasn’t met.”
A former health policy expert for Kemp, Noggle was instrumental in rolling out Georgia’s Medicaid work requirement policy experiment. She now heads the Georgia Hospital Association, the lobby group that earlier this summer successfully worked to maintain federal repayment rates for hospitals, even as Republicans in Congress have slashed spending on programs that low-income Georgians rely on.
One of the core topics the commission agreed to discuss was challenges facing the Medicaid work requirement program known as Georgia Pathways to Coverage, which provides free health insurance to Georgians living under the federal poverty line if they complete a set amount of hours working, studying or volunteering each month. Two years after Pathways’ launch, approximately 3% of the nearly 247,000 eligible Georgians have successfully enrolled.
The state law governing the commission’s work requires the group to publish two reports annually. The nine-page report drafted by consultants from the accounting firm E&Y, previously known as Ernst & Young, and reviewed by The Current before its publication provides summaries of the core topics that the commission identified last year as needing attention. Those include Medicaid access for the state’s low-income children, the need for increasing health care workforce and improving access to health insurance.
‘I take my role in the commission seriously and I believe that our work can protect lives….But it’s preposterous to publish a report on behalf of a commission that hasn’t met.’
Dr. Harry Heiman, Commission member
But the report lacks mention of the drastic impact on Georgians that national health advocacy groups say will be the result of H.R. 1, the new law approved by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Trump on July 4. It strips more than $600 billion dollars over the next decade from federal safety net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.
One issue the report does amplify is a looming threat to Georgia’s health insurance marketplace and 1.5 million Georgia consumers.
Federal subsidies in place for years to make health insurance affordable from so-called Obamacare marketplace plans are set to expire on Dec. 31, and Congress has not shown any sign of extending them. The report states what health care advocates have been warning for months now: Georgians will be looking at major spikes in their health insurance premiums in 2026 and the state’s uninsured rates are likely to jump as a result.
“The expiration of these tax credits would likely have a significant impact on Georgians and healthcare providers, as many individuals would lose or opt out of coverage and move into an uninsured category,” according to the document.
Health-care insurance companies have submitted their preliminary reports about likely premium costs in 2026 without the Obamacare subsidies, and rates in Georgia could rise by upwards of 75%, according to research by health care experts at Kaiser Family Foundation.
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Type of Story: News Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.