Georgia residents will not have access to the Affordable Care Act federal website. The state will now only offer plans through Georgia Access.
Starting on Nov. 1, Georgia residents seeking healthcare will be blocked from website healthcare.gov and will have to enroll on georgiaaccess.gov.
The change comes following years of political discourse on the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act. An initiative signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010 and known as Obamacare, the law provided access to insurance for every American.
While Democrats praised the plan, some Republicans in the state found ways to take aim at Obamacare.
But while politics played a key role in the bickering over Obamacare, consumers appeared to embrace the initiative.
Georgia was one of the states with the greatest growth of enrollment of ACA since 2020, according to a study by KFF. The state increased enrollment by 181% between 2020 and 2024. Over 1.3 million Georgians signed up for ACA in 2024 alone.
However, millions of Georgians were left uninsured, mostly due the state officials unwillingness to expand Medicare in the state. The ACA allowed for an expansion of Medicaid for poor adults with the federal government covering 90 percent of all the costs. But during his tenure in office, Gov. Brian Kemp is one of 10 governors who has yet to accept funding for the expansion.
Kemp seeks to expand Pathways to Coverage which would include work and activity requirements for those who need healthcare. With the ACA, states could set up their own exchanges for the federal subsidy program.
State officials are now claiming that Georgia Access will help to decrease the number of uninsured in Georgia.
“This milestone is the result of the extraordinary work our office has conducted over the past three years to move Georgia away from reliance on the federal government for health coverage,” said OCI Commissioner John King in a statement. “The Georgia Access approach is an innovative one. It will be the first State-based Exchange to partner with private sector companies to get consumers enrolled. It represents our commitment to expand access to affordable, quality health coverage and reduce the number of uninsured Georgians.”
