After Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp delivered his annual State of the State address on Georgia’s achievements and his legislative goals, state Democratic leaders are preparing to push back on tort reform, the state’s medical insurance program and details of the governor’s school safety proposals.
Kemp focused on building his case for tort reform, which he has named his top legislative priority this session.
The reform would aim to limit civil lawsuits and curb rising insurance costs, especially for small businesses, but he has yet to release details on what his proposal would entail. Nevertheless, Kemp did hint at a potential special session to pass tort reform if it is not achieved in this session.
In a press conference after the address, Democratic House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley said Kemp’s speech was “a little light on substance and heavy on politics.”
“The governor needs to put forth what he wants to see, and of course, we’re always willing to come to the table, but we gotta see what he is proposing, because he gave you three examples of meeting with small business people and around his tour around the state, but he did not say where he’s heading with that,” Hugley said. “At the end of the day, we got to make sure that people have access to our courts, and if they are harmed in any way, they have to be able to recover.”
Democratic House Minority Caucus Chairman Tanya Miller said that tort reform has the potential to impede Georgians’ access to civil litigation.
“We are not talking about lawyers. We are talking about citizens. We are talking about injured citizens that have a right to have their day in court, and that’s a constitutional right in our state of Georgia,” Miller said. “So any legislation that seeks to impinge on that constitutional right has to be strictly reviewed by us to make sure that it is narrowly tailored and fair to citizens.”
Miller added that she would like to see a more “robust discussion” about the role that insurance companies play in causing premiums to rise for Georgians.
“What I really would like to see the Republicans talk about is not just the trial lawyers, but the insurance companies,” Miller said. “What we really have to understand is their integrity and their position on why rates keep rising for Georgians. It is not, I think, accurate to say that jury verdicts are the sole reason for why insurance rates are rising.”
Kemp touted Georgia Access, a state-based medical insurance exchange that launched last year. Georgians are no longer able to sign up for insurance via healthcare.gov.
The governor also reiterated his proposal to expand the scope of the Pathways to Coverage program, which is for low-income adults who aren’t otherwise eligible for Medicaid in Georgia. Enrollment in the Pathways program was lower than expected in its first year, according to a Georgia Budget and Policy Institute analysis. Kemp’s proposed changes to the program would extend coverage to low-income parents and legal guardians of children up to age six.
“And I’m going to keep repeating this until I’m blue in the face, even though many on the other side or in the media don’t want to hear it: we’re covering well over 200,000 more Georgians than traditional Medicaid expansion would cover. And those Georgians are on better plans that deliver better coverage, and lead to better healthcare outcomes for them and their families,” Kemp said during his Wednesday speech.
Democratic House Minority Whip Sam Park attributed the governor’s figure of 200,000 insured Georgians to the effects of the Affordable Care Act and former President Barack Obama.
State Democrats have criticized Kemp for not supporting a full expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
“The governor has to understand that we are challenged when we have 11.7% of Georgians without coverage, and that has not changed since yesterday, and his Pathways program does not provide an answer to that,” Hugley said, citing a statistic from the 2022 U.S. Census American Community Survey.
“We’re the number one state to do business, but not so much when it comes to health care.”
During his State of the State address, Kemp also touched on his school safety investments and applauded two school resource officers who responded to a shooting at Apalachee High School in September that resulted in four deaths.
The governor previously approved $115 million in yearly school security grants and has proposed adding a one-time amount of $50 million to the amended fiscal year 2025 budget. He has also proposed more than $872,000 in the Quality Basic Education program to increase the psychologist-to-student ratio in schools.
Hugley said the Georgia House Democratic Caucus will have proposals for promoting gun safety. In addition, she said she wants to see more proposals for increasing the number of counselors and social workers for students.
“School safety is more than just resource officers and metal detectors,” the minority leader said. “We gotta cover the internal threats as well as the external threats that our children face every day at school.”
“If we’re really talking about school safety, where are those people and where are those positions so that we can deal with bullying, we can deal with children that don’t have access to resources so that the social workers can connect the child and the family to what they need,” she added.
