Moral Monday Protesters Rally for Medicaid Expansion

The coalition of religious and progressive activists demanded Gov. Nathan Deal change his mind about Medicaid expansion, thus enabling hundreds of thousands of uninsured Georgians to gain health coverage.

“Healthcare and access to healthcare – preventative services as well as treatment – is a civil right, a human right, and a moral right,” said Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society and a physician at Grady Hospital.

Deal has argued the state can’t afford the expansion.

Protestors, however, reiterated the federal government is picking up the vast majority of expansion costs. They say Deal’s “ideological stubbornness” over the Affordable Care Act is leaving Georgia’s uninsured behind.

Moral Monday Georgia is based on North Carolina’s Moral Monday protests, wherein each week during last year’s legislative session demonstrators rallied against Republican legislation.