Despite the fact that over 20 percent of Georgians are without any kind of health insurance, state Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens and Governor Nathan Deal are continuing their fight to implement all but the bare minimum of the Affordable Care Act.
A report released Monday by Bloomberg shows that Governor Deal’s political action committee, Real PAC, has received nearly $1M in donations from the health care industry since 2011. Deal’s fight against Georgia’s health insurance exchange seems to have shifted course over the past 36 months- two summers ago, Deal started an exploratory committee to investigate how Georgia could set up its own exchange, declaring that it was his “hope” that the committee would find a way for the state to do so.
In November 2012, once the donations started flowing to Real PAC, Deal changed course. In an interview with FOX Business earlier this year, the Governor said he subscribes “to the conspiracy theory that the law is a Trojan horse full of socialists.”
As for Hudgens, he told a crowd of Republican backers in Rome last month that “he’s solving the problem of ObamaCare in Georgia by doing ‘everything in our power to be an obstructionist.’” This includes forcing the ‘navigators’ to pass the same test as required by insurance agents…with Georgia being the only state to require such a mandate.
Read more from Bloomberg here.