Georgia Reshaping Medicaid

Benjamin Lust, 21, putting away laundry
at his Acworth home, has autism
that requires care 24/7. 

 

ATLANTA -- Georgia is reshaping its Medicaid program, a complex lifeline for 1.7 million vulnerable people that consumes $21 million in state and federal dollars every single day.

The state is widely expected to announce a plan this summer that would dramatically expand the use of for-profit insurance companies in a new approach to managing Medicaid.
The hope: that the companies would help hold down burgeoning Medicaid costs by emphasizing prevention and better tracking and coordinating care. That should mean fewer poor, disabled and elderly Georgians end up in emergency rooms, that more psychiatric patients remain stable and that doctors share test results instead of ordering duplicates that taxpayers wind up funding.