Health care access, Medicaid expansion remain at center of Gold Dome debate over Georgia hospital rules

|

March 14th, 2024

The gold dome of the Georgia Capitol gleams in the sun, Aug. 27, 2022, in front of the skyline of downtown Atlanta. Some U.S. urban areas gained population. But it’s not because of a sudden flood of moving trucks into Atlanta, New Orleans and San Francisco. According to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, it's because the U.S. Census Bureau corrected errors made in the estimates of population urban areas that were released in December 2022. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

Atlanta could be on track to get a new teaching hospital run by Morehouse School of Medicine. It’s an idea being floated as part of legislation that would scale back Georgia’s hospital regulations known as certificate of need.

A new full-service hospital would increase access to health care in the city, more than a year after Wellstar closed its Old Fourth Ward Atlanta Medical Center campus. AMC’s 2022 closure left Grady Memorial Hospital as the Atlanta metro area’s only remaining Level 1 Trauma Center.

House Bill 1339 would ease the decades-old certificate-of-need restrictions governing where health systems can build and expand across the state. It would also increase the tax credit limit for contributions to rural hospitals.   

Related

Top Stories