Makers and takers: Medicaid edition

Working full time and yet not being able to afford health insurance coverage literally sticks in Kathryn Playford’s throat.

The office manager for a self-storage facility and office park in North Augusta says she has put off surgery for an enlarged thyroid for years because she lacks health care coverage.

“Eventually, it may enlarge to the point where I can’t breathe,” Playford said.

The governors of Georgia and South Carolina have decided not to expand Medicaid coverage to more uninsured despite high rates of working families with no coverage.

In South Carolina, nearly half of the 766,304 uninsured, or 359,107, are working and 19.3 percent of people employed in the state lack insurance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2011.

In Georgia, 22.7 percent of the employed lack health insurance, and working families make up 48.3 percent of the uninsured.

The states turned down the expansion under the Affordable Care Act despite the fact that it would be fully funded for the first three years and would not dip below 90 percent federally funded in subsequent years.

In Georgia, the expansion would offer Medicaid coverage for individuals making nearly $16,000 a year and for families of four making around $32,000 a year. Within that adult population, 50.6 percent are uninsured, according to Census data.

“I would argue that those are the people that are really getting the burden of the state not investing more of its state dollars” in Medicaid, said Tim Sweeney, the director of health policy for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

Advocates in a coalition called Cover Georgia will gather Tuesday at the state Capitol to rally for the state to reconsider Medicaid expansion.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has said the state cannot afford it and that the federal government might not be able to continue funding it in the future.