{"id":233869,"date":"2025-10-07T17:33:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T21:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=233869"},"modified":"2025-11-28T23:59:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T04:59:37","slug":"health-officials-are-talking-but-will-georgia-lawmakers-actually-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=233869","title":{"rendered":"Health Officials Are Talking, But Will Georgia Lawmakers Actually Listen?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-yoast-seo-ai-summarize yoast-ai-summarize\"><h2>Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list yoast-ai-summarize-list\">\n<li>Georgia&#8217;s public health services face funding challenges due to federal cutbacks and expiring COVID-19 dollars.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>State funding per capita has increased, but federal contributions declined, reducing spending to $74 from $97 since 2012.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rural areas may struggle more with health funding, risking hospital closures and fewer public health workers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lawmakers recognize that public health investments save money and enhance community welfare, health security, and economic development.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A committee has been formed to assess public health funding, with recommendations due by December 1.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Public health services save Georgia money and heartache, but funding has failed to keep up with costs and recent federal cutbacks put the state at a crossroads, lawmakers heard from advocates and experts Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Expiring federal dollars from the COVID-19 pandemic, clawbacks of federal grants and now the Congressional budget shutdown have affected all public health programs, including Georgia\u2019s, said Kelly Hughes, a health policy expert with the National Conference of State Legislatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is just a time of uncertainty and instability,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Georgia has nearly doubled state tax dollars allocated per capita to public health during the past dozen years, but federal contributions have lagged, resulting in a net decline, said Leah Chan, a health policy analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. She said Georgia\u2019s per person spending fell to $74 this year, from $97 in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rural areas are more likely to suffer because small, local governments are less able to plug funding gaps. Hospitals could close, the lawmakers heard, and public health workers could become increasingly rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The House study committee on public health funding was established in April through legislation sponsored by a half dozen Republicans. House Resolution 847 says public health has been underfunded and more money may be needed to ensure a \u201csustainable\u201d infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGeorgia\u2019s health security and financial well-being depend on a growing, fully funded state and local public health system,\u201d the enabling resolution says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It passed unanimously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawmakers on the resulting committee heard more or less what their resolution had anticipated: programs for vaccination, lead abatement, tobacco cessation, substance abuse prevention, HIV prevention, and maternal and child health care save society far more in preventable health care expenses than they cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They also increase communal welfare and wealth, said Jessica Schwind from Georgia Southern University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou have an increase in academic achievement, increase in workforce productivity, higher tax revenue generation because you have people working, reduced criminal justice costs, stronger economic development,\u201d said Schwind, an assistant professor of epidemiology. \u201cWhen you take care of the individual, that has profound impacts on the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several members of the committee had co-sponsored the resolution that authorized their meetings. There was only one Democrat assigned and present. The rest were Republicans, two of them among the most influential lawmakers in the General Assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rep. Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, leads the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees the chamber\u2019s budget-writing duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rep. Butch Parrish, R-Swainsboro, chairs the House Rules Committee (as well as the Special Committee on Healthcare), and effectively decides which bills make it to floor of the chamber for a vote by all representatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neither indicated what they would do next. The committee chair, Rep. Darlene Taylor, R-Thomasville, did not either as she ended their third and final meeting. Their committee has a Dec. 1 deadline to issue any recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The April resolution the trio had co-sponsored sounded a lot like Schwind\u2019s presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIncreases in public health spending have been shown to reduce preventable deaths,\u201d it says, \u201cand healthier communities support stronger economies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This article is available through a partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Association&#8217;s nonprofit, tax-exempt Educational Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-yoast-seo-related-links yoast-seo-related-links\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/georgia-by-the-numbers\/which-georgia-city-is-the-best-at-keeping-new-years-resolutions-and-which-is-the-worst\/\">Which Georgia City is The Best At Keeping New Year&#8217;s Resolutions and Which is The Worst?<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/government\/representing-you\/no-bet-georgia-sports-betting-resolution-fails\/\">No Bet: Georgia Sports Betting Resolution Fails<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/family\/health\/all-159-georgia-counties-unite-to-urge-brian-kemp-to-reform-mental-health\/\">All 159 Georgia Counties Unite to Urge Brian Kemp to Reform Mental Health<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/your-community\/transform-your-newsfeed-in-2024-embrace-the-power-of-local-news\/\">Transform Your Newsfeed in 2024: Embrace the Power of Local News<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/business-economy\/will-georgia-voters-get-to-decide-on-casinos\/\">Will Georgia Voters Get to Decide on Casinos?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public health services save Georgia money and heartache, but funding has failed to keep up with costs and recent federal cutbacks put the state at a crossroads, lawmakers heard from advocates and experts Tuesday. Expiring federal dollars from the COVID-19 pandemic, clawbacks of federal grants and now the Congressional budget shutdown have affected all public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":948,"featured_media":213484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"above","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11786],"tags":[8554,8555,8978,18611],"class_list":["post-233869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-legislature","tag-public-health","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/948"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=233869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=233869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=233869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=233869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}