Today marks the Georgia Chamber’s Rural Day at the Capitol – and the Republican gubernatorial field supports policies that will raise costs, take away health care for communities in rural Georgia, and close rural hospitals.
The GOP candidates have long refused to expand Medicaid, which has led to nine rural Georgia hospitals closing since 2010. And to make matters worse, DC Republicans’ cost-raising, Medicaid-gutting agenda – which the candidates have voiced support for – has put even more rural hospitals at risk, and in less than a year has already been cited as a factor in the closure of a labor and delivery unit in northeast Georgia.
DC Republicans’ policies, which the gubernatorial candidates have all voiced support for, have also meant:
- Skyrocketing health care premiums for Georgians, with average costs projected to surge by more than $860 a month.
- 1.4 million Georgians bracing for their premiums to go up with the end of ACA open enrollment.
- Georgia losing 190,000 ACA enrollees in just the first month of 2026 enrollment – which is expected to keep growing as Georgians face extreme price hikes on their premiums.
This crisis comes as DC Republicans’ tariff tax increases are hurting Georgia farmers. The Georgia Farm Bureau has long warned that “[t]ariffs pose threats to many Georgia farmers,” but clearly the GOP candidates for governor didn’t get the memo.
As result of these tariff tax increases, Georgia farmers have suffered, with producers of everything from soybeans to peaches, strawberries and pumpkins struggling to keep up with these cost-raising and job-killing policies.
“The GOP candidates for governor refuse to expand Medicaid and continue to support policies that raise costs for communities in rural Georgia, shutter rural hospitals, and strip Georgians of their health care,” said Jake Strickland, communications advisor to the Georgia Democratic Party. “While Burt Jones, Rick Jackson, Brad Raffensperger, and Chris Carr continue to fight each other over the GOP’s cost-raising agenda, Georgia Democrats will continue fighting to lower costs and expand health care for Georgians in every corner of our state.”
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