Opinion: Your Elected Officials Don’t Give a Damn About Your Health

Earlier this month, 1.2 million Georgians were able to log into Georgia Access to check their 2026 health insurance premiums.

A family of four in Chatham County discovered they’d be paying nearly $20,000 more per year for the lowest cost plan. Not $20,000 total. Twenty thousand dollars more than last year.

That’s a used car. That’s a year of college tuition. That’s rent. That’s choosing between health insurance and literally everything else in your budget.

While this was a shock to Georgia families, it is something your elected officials have been aware of all year. Everybody in power knew this was going to happen once the Affordable Care Act’s extended tax subsidies expired.

The Georgia Sun reached out to both the governor’s office and the insurance commissioner’s office multiple times this year, asking what the state planned to do about premiums doubling for over a million Georgians.

We got nothing. Not “we’re working on it.” Not “no comment.” Not even “go away.” Just silence. The kind of silence that tells you everything you need to know about how much your elected officials care about whether you live or die.

Maybe they were busy. Maybe they had more important things to deal with. Or maybe—and I’m just spitballing here—they don’t give a damn.

Before we go any further, let’s clear something up. The Affordable Care Act isn’t for “illegal immigrants” or “people who don’t want to work” or whatever your uncle posted on Facebook last week.

The ACA is how small business owners get insurance. It’s how contract workers, gig workers, and freelancers get coverage. There are also some companies with more than 100 employees who use it. Your Uber driver? Probably on Georgia Access. That person who runs the boutique downtown? Georgia Access. The freelance graphic designer who did your company’s logo. The independent contractor who fixed your roof. The grocery store clerk. Your waitress. The person who cleans your house.

These aren’t people waiting for a handout. These are people working—often multiple jobs—trying to stay alive in a state that seems determined to make that as expensive as possible.

And here’s something that should tell you everything: There’s an entire organization called The Georgia Health Initiative that exists solely to find solutions to problems our state leaders refuse to address. They’re working to “advance bold ideas to improve the health of Georgians” by “building bridges and creating coalitions of solution-seekers across sectors, communities, and regions.”

The Georgia Health Initiative wouldn’t need to exist if our governor and legislature were doing what we pay them to do. But here we are, with volunteers trying to solve a crisis while our elected officials—who, by the way, enjoy the state health benefits plan and don’t have to buy insurance off Georgia Access—sit in their offices pretending everything is fine. Meanwhile, their constituents try to pick up the pieces after poor healthcare took the lives of their loved ones during childbirth.

Other states have their own subsidies. Other states have programs that make sure every child in the state is insured. Other states have laws governing what insurance companies must cover and what they must pay.

Georgia? We handed the insurance companies the keys and said, “Do whatever you want.”

Premiums doubled.

Shocked? Me neither.

Georgia politicians love to talk about “protecting lives and livelihoods.” Sounds great in a campaign ad, doesn’t it? But let me translate what “lives and livelihoods” actually means when it comes out of a politician’s mouth:

We’ll protect lives—but not if it costs businesses money. Not if it cuts into insurance company profits. Not if it means we have to regulate anything or help people.

“Lives and livelihoods” means your life matters right up until the point where saving it might inconvenience someone’s bottom line. After that? You’re on your own. Might I suggest a GoFundMe? It’s become America’s healthcare system anyway.

The press has been covering Georgia’s healthcare failures for years. Our abysmal maternal mortality rates. Our infant death rates. Rural hospitals closing. Mental health care deserts. The fact that Georgia ranks 48th in healthcare quality. Georgia’s high rate of early births that earned us a grade of F. The fact that Georgia was named the worst state for healthcare. Our bottom-of-the-barrel ranking in women’s health.

Every time we report these facts—and they are facts, backed by data and studies and the lived experiences of Georgians—some of you call us fake news. You tell us to move to California if we don’t like it here. You send emails that start with “I just read your little story,” and end with “shame on you.”

But facts don’t care about what your grandpappy thought about doctors or what you read on social media about being injected with 5G. Georgia’s healthcare system is in crisis. That’s not opinion. That’s reality.

St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Northeast Georgia announced plans to close its labor and delivery unit last month. They’re looking at a $3.3 million budget shortfall due to recent medicaid cuts. When people can’t afford insurance, they don’t go to the doctor until it’s an emergency. Then they show up at the ER, can’t pay their bills, and hospitals—especially rural hospitals—have to absorb those costs.

Eventually, they can’t. So they close. Or they cut services.

And then people die.

This isn’t theoretical. This is happening right now.

The thing is, the person who dies due to lack of health insurance, or not having a nearby hospital, will not be listed as “died due to poor health care.” The death certificate will say whatever their final symptom was. There is no way to document the number of lives lost to Georgia’s neglect of the health of its citizens.

Whenever these issues are mentioned, some ignoramus named Bubba shouts, “Get a job! Don’t waste your money on iPones and Avocados.” Well, I’ve already shown you that the people using the Affordable Care Act often work harder than you do. But let’s talk about the big ‘ol greedy elephant in the room.

Should a life and death issue like health care be tied to your job? Should your boss get to decide the quality of health care that you have? Should white collar workers have better insurance than blue-collar workers? Should people who work for large corporations get better care at the hospital than people who work for a small business or who work for themselves?

Should health care be based on where you work and what you can afford?

I will say it plainly: if you believe that people should only get healthcare if they can afford it, I have serious questions about your morality. And you should, too.

We’re not talking about luxury goods. We’re talking about insulin. Cancer treatment. Prenatal care. The ability to see a doctor when you’re sick instead of hoping it goes away on its own.

Women in Georgia are dying during childbirth. Their babies are dying. Your neighbors are rationing medication. People at your church are choosing between rent and prescriptions.

And our elected officials have chosen to do absolutely nothing.

Healthcare should never be a political issue. It’s a human issue. A moral issue. A “do we care if our neighbors live or die” issue.

The Constitution promises us the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life comes first. Not life if you can afford it. Not life if you have a good job with benefits. Not life if you’re wealthy enough to pay cash for medical care.

Just life.

So here’s my final thought, and I want you to sit with this one:

If you voted for someone who claimed to be pro-life, but they think only the wealthy should have healthcare, they ain’t pro-life and you got played.

Your state leaders could find ways to fix these problems. They simply don’t want to because they care more about businesses than they do about whether or not you live or die. And they’ve convinced a significant number of you that when business profits, you profit.

How’s that working out for you?