Health News
- Free-standing Emergency Departments Could Be The Solution To Keeping Hospital Services In Rural Areas
The tribulations of rural hospitals in Georgia, and the response, could signal a new direction for saving such facilities. Four rural hospitals in Georgia "have closed in the past two years, and several more either have closed or significantly reduced...
- Shortages Of Insurance Providers And Hospitals Lead To Higher Insurance Premiums Under Obamacare In Rural Areas
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was designed to make it easier for uninsured Americans to buy insurance at an affordable rate. But the exact opposite is happening in rural areas in many states, where a lack of insurance providers has eliminated...
- Electric Cooperatives' Monthly Magazine Looks At The Poor Health Of Our State's Children
Courtney Cagle, 14, of Clinton learns how to cook healthy spaghetti in UK's Cooperative Extension nutrition program The November issue of Kentucky Living magazine, published monthly for member-customers of the state's electric cooperatives, focuses...
- Uk Extension Service Launches Online Challenge To Improve Physical And Financial Wellness
The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service has created an online challenge designed to help people improve their health and financial status. The Kentucky Fall 2011 Small Steps to Health and Wealth challenge starts Sept. 4 and runs to Oct....
- National System Needed To Battle Pill Abuse, Newspaper Says
Despite Georgia's recent move to implement a system that will track prescription pill use, a national system is needed to help prevent the problem flowing "to the next crack in the system," the Lexington Herald-Leader says in an editorial today. ...
Health News
Obamacare navigator program in Georgia, overseen by former UK Extension official, is ended by state legislature
By Melissa Landon
Kentucky Health News
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed into law two bills aimed at thwarting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One will prevent the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Georgia from continuing its navigator program to help Georgians get Obamacare coverage once the federal grant of $1.7 million runs out in August.
The navigator program sought to educate people about the law, to help them sign up for Medicaid or for coverage on the federal exchange. "People who had never had insurance and hadn't had insurance in a long time got affordable, high-quality insurance," Deborah Murray, the college's associate dean for Extension and outreach, told Kentucky Health News. "People were so appreciative and relieved to know they could now afford health care."
Before going to Georgia, Murray was director of the Health Education in Extension Leadership program in the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture, which oversees the Cooperative Extension Service in the state. She said only a few other navigator programs are based at universities.
Murray said she knew Obamacare wasn't popular in Georgia, but she still didn't expect the kind of opposition that arose in the legislature. "The role of the university is to educate," she said. "What we were doing is really education focused: giving people the information they needed to make informed decisions."
Kentucky Health News
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed into law two bills aimed at thwarting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One will prevent the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Georgia from continuing its navigator program to help Georgians get Obamacare coverage once the federal grant of $1.7 million runs out in August.
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| Deborah Murray |
Before going to Georgia, Murray was director of the Health Education in Extension Leadership program in the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture, which oversees the Cooperative Extension Service in the state. She said only a few other navigator programs are based at universities.
Murray said she knew Obamacare wasn't popular in Georgia, but she still didn't expect the kind of opposition that arose in the legislature. "The role of the university is to educate," she said. "What we were doing is really education focused: giving people the information they needed to make informed decisions."
After the grant runs out, Murray said the Extension Service will continue its mission to educate and inform. "Educating the public about health-insurance literacy is part of the Extension and land-grant mission of the university, and we will continue to do that," she said. "Helping people understand health insurance and use it properly will help reduce health care costs." Like Kentucky, Georgia has a network of county extension offices, which they will use to continue informing people about important ideas like preventative care, co-insurance and deductibles, Murray said.
The Georgia legislation also transfers Medicaid expansion authority from the governor's office to lawmakers and bans the creation of a state health insurance exchange like Kentucky's. Although Georgia did not expand Medicaid eligibility to people earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, as Kentucky did, poor people who qualified for it and PeachCare, a state program, could still sign up. "Georgia cannot afford for our Medicaid rolls to swell. Otherwise, we start cutting into the education budget, the transportation budget and the public safety budget," Rep. Jason Spencer, sponsor of HB 943, told Georgia Health News.- Free-standing Emergency Departments Could Be The Solution To Keeping Hospital Services In Rural Areas
The tribulations of rural hospitals in Georgia, and the response, could signal a new direction for saving such facilities. Four rural hospitals in Georgia "have closed in the past two years, and several more either have closed or significantly reduced...
- Shortages Of Insurance Providers And Hospitals Lead To Higher Insurance Premiums Under Obamacare In Rural Areas
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was designed to make it easier for uninsured Americans to buy insurance at an affordable rate. But the exact opposite is happening in rural areas in many states, where a lack of insurance providers has eliminated...
- Electric Cooperatives' Monthly Magazine Looks At The Poor Health Of Our State's Children
Courtney Cagle, 14, of Clinton learns how to cook healthy spaghetti in UK's Cooperative Extension nutrition program The November issue of Kentucky Living magazine, published monthly for member-customers of the state's electric cooperatives, focuses...
- Uk Extension Service Launches Online Challenge To Improve Physical And Financial Wellness
The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service has created an online challenge designed to help people improve their health and financial status. The Kentucky Fall 2011 Small Steps to Health and Wealth challenge starts Sept. 4 and runs to Oct....
- National System Needed To Battle Pill Abuse, Newspaper Says
Despite Georgia's recent move to implement a system that will track prescription pill use, a national system is needed to help prevent the problem flowing "to the next crack in the system," the Lexington Herald-Leader says in an editorial today. ...