ATLANTA, GA — Georgia Blue Cross and Blue Shield recently announced it would no longer cover ‘non-emergency’ visits to emergency rooms in the State. Anthem’s BC/BS will determine whether or not ER visits are a reimbursable emergency. Policyholders will undoubtedly hesitate to seek care for fear of bankrupting costs. The result will be more preventable deaths and unnecessary suffering for Georgians.
If the Blues can get away with this policy in Georgia, it will surely be instituted elsewhere. In a State where 79 counties have no OB/GYN; 66 no general surgeon; 63 no pediatrician; 53 counties with no hospital and cascading rural hospitals closures, Georgia healthcare is already dead on arrival. A visit to the emergency room outside of major metropolitan areas like Atlanta, Columbus, Augusta, Athens, Rome and Savannah may be moot – there are none. The 2015 Georgia Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee reported that, “Georgia has virtually no rural hospitals in counties capable of supporting an emergency room without subsidies.”
Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner, Ralph Hudgens predictably approved this policy. Georgia’s State Insurance Department is notorious for being an arm of the corporate insurance companies since the State allows for industries that the Commissioner regulates to make campaign contributions. Hudgens is not only the recipient of the industry’s vast campaign contributions, perks and gifts but also their mouthpiece. Using an anecdote comparing someone with breast cancer to a person trying to buy car insurance after having a wreck, Hudgens said: “Well, I just had a wreck, it was my fault and I want the insurance company to pay to repair my car. And that’s the exact same thing on pre-existing {health} insurance.” He makes crystal clear that healthcare under capitalism is a commodity just like an automobile; a ‘product’ to bought not a necessity to be distributed. There is no façade of democracy here in Georgia.
All this is occurring within the context of ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act. The ACA, a two-edge sword that on the one hand, curbed some of the most toxic practices of the insurance industry like exclusions for pre-existing conditions, moderated premium costs for some, ended caps on coverage and allowed for young people to stay on parents’ insurance until age 26, but on the other hand, primarily was constructed to stabilize the private insurance market through huge government subsidies to corporate health insurers. ACA’s most significant benefit, Medicaid expansion is the central target of the ‘repeal’ machinations on Capitol Hill. But the snowball rolling down this fetid Hill is not just about ending the expansion but withdrawing nearly all federal funds and oversight of any Medicaid program. Georgia and nine other Southern State governments refused to expand Medicaid. Working and poor people in the South have no choice but while acting to defend and call for Medicaid expansion must necessarily go on the offensive for Improved Medicare for All, a step in the direction toward a national public health service based on peoples’ need not the insurance marketplace.
