Kemp Cruelly Vetoes Plan to Expand Medicaid to Georgians Living with HIV

Kemp Cruelly Vetoes Plan to Expand Medicaid to Georgians Living with HIV

On Friday, Brian Kemp cruelly chose to veto a plan to expand Medicaid to Georgians living with HIV, continuing his long-standing opposition to increasing access to health care for vulnerable Georgians. The Democratic Party of Georgia released the following statement in response:

“By blocking this expansion of lifesaving care, Brian Kemp is sending a clear and cruel message with his veto pen — if you’re a Georgian living with HIV, he doesn’t care about you. Kemp has proven time and again that his priority as governor is supporting his political career, not the constituents he took an oath to serve,” said Max Flugrath, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia.

Georgia has the highest rate of new HIV diagnoses among all fifty states,  and Medicaid is the largest source of insurance coverage for people living with HIV. But under Brian Kemp, the Peach State remains as one of only twelve states that continue to refuse Medicaid expansion.

Kemp’s callous move to block Medicaid expansion for Georgians living with HIV will have a disproportionate impact on the state’s Black community — in 2019, Black people accounted for 42% of all new HIV diagnoses.

Kemp has also spoken about a non-existent AIDS vaccine several times in the past:

• “Just like the AIDS vaccine; mandating it didn’t work,” Kemp said in a September 2021 interview on Fox Business News. 

• “That’s basically how the AIDS vaccine worked,” Kemp said on a podcast in September 2021. “I mean, people wouldn’t take it early on because it was mandated.” 

• “…when you look back at trying to mandate somebody taking the AIDS vaccine, it doesn’t work,”  Kemp said during a press conference in September 2020.

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