Candidates talk Medicaid, gun safety in political forum

Oct. 13--The question of Medicaid expansion seemed to dominate discussion at a political forum of legislative candidates Thursday night.

The Democrats were for it and the Republicans were against it. Also in favor was a man named John Fortuin, a write-in candidate for the District 46 Senate seat

The forum brought eight of nine candidates for four seats in the state Legislature to a Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center auditorium to answer questions from moderator Tim Bryant of radio station WGAU and an audience of about 100 people.

Bill Cowsert, the incumbent Republican District 46 state senator, didn't show.

But other candidates for two Senate and two House seats were -- District 46 Democratic nominee Marisue Hilliard; Fortuin the write-in candidate; incumbent Senate District 47 Republican Frank Ginn of Madison County; Democratic District 47 candidate Dawn Johnson, incumbent House District 117 Democratic incumbent Deborah Gonzalez and her Republican opponent, Houston Gaines; and incumbent House District 119 Rep. Jonathan Wallace, a Democrat, and Republican nominee Marcus Weiedower.

Johnson cited Georgia's low health care rankings -- No. 7 in infant mortality among the 50 states, No. 1 in maternal mortality, No. 50 in access to health care -- in arguing in favor of accepting federal dollars to expand Medicaid to more people.

"Georgia is trending downward because we have not been focusing on the citizens," she said. "We have been focusing on corporations."

"My question is: Where does personal responsibility come into that picture?" Ginn asked. "I think that's an individual choice and an individual responsibility. We're taking your money, taking from somebody that's healthy and giving it to somebody that's not."

The two also differed on other issues; people who have permits to carry a gun "are some of the most law-abiding citizens in Georgia," said Ginn, while Johnson said arming teachers would make schools more dangerous for students and teachers, not less.

Hilliard, the Senate 46 Democratic candidate, called from more mental health counselors and closed campuses to improve school safety.

Moderator Bryant pointed out that Cowsert last year actually voted against the bill that allows concealed guns on college campuses.

But that was a safe vote for Cowsert, who knew it would pass overwhelming without his vote in the heavily Republican Senate, Hilliard said.

"My opponent continues to get an A plus rating from the NRA," she said.

"That vote should have failed," agreed Fortuin.

Fortuin advocated Medicaid for all, lamenting how we are "wasting our lives in the paperwork bureaucracy of medical bill and insurance companies."

Health care would improve in rural Georgia with expanded Medicaid eligibility, said Hilliard, pointing to the experience of Arkansas and Kentucky, where state leaders decided to expand Medicaid after initial reluctance. Six rural Georgia hospitals have closed since 2010, she noted.

"It all comes down to setting priorities," Hilliard said.

In the District 117 House race, Gonzalez said the big tax breaks Georgia offers to giant corporations such as Amazon should go instead to small businesses already in the state.

Gaines said he would not support allowing the non-citizen children of illegal immigrants to be eligible for the HOPE Scholarship or in-state tuition.

But making them eligible would help all of us in the end, Gonzalez said.

"They know no other country than this one," she said of the children who've grown up here.

Students should be able to graduate from college without debt, Gonzalez said.

"It'd be really interested to see how you'd pay for that," Gaines responded.

Going back to health care, expanding Medicaid would "triple or quadruple" the state budget, he said.

Many physicians don't accept Medicaid reimbursement because it doesn't cover costs, Gaines said.

That's a problem, agreed Wallace, the District 119 incumbent, when he and Wiedower took their turn in front of the crowd.

"Right now in Georgia, Medicaid pays about 85 percent of cost, so that's a big challenge," he said.

But Medicaid expansion would have more impact for economic development than anything else the state could do, he said.

Wiedower suggested direct doctor-to-patient billing and somehow incentivizing doctors who treat low-income patients.

Wiedower, a homebuilder, and Wallace, a software developer, also disagreed on election security.

Tallying votes strictly digitally, with computers, is inherently unsafe, Wallace said. The only way to ensure accurate vote counts is to have paper ballots and use them to spot-check the computers.

"To go to paper ballots seems extremely inefficient," Wiedower said. But Georgia's old voting machines "clearly" need to be updated, he said.

Both Senate and both House districts encompass two or more counties. Senate District 46 includes Oconee and parts of Clarke and Walton counties; Senate District 47, a sliver of Clarke and several heavily Republican rural counties; House District 117 includes parts of Clarke, Oconee, Jackson and Barrow counties; and 119 is partly Clarke, partly Oconee County.

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