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Sunday, February 11, 2007
Sucking it up in suburbia: The Republican side of PeachCare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Republican governor jetted up to Washington. He’s written letters and made phone calls willy-nilly, reaching as high as the White House.
The Republican lieutenant governor ordered up a task force. Republican lawmakers talk not only of saving the expensive program, but expanding it. They have embraced Democrats as brothers and sisters in the effort.
And when a Georgia Republican congressman broke ranks and said that overspending was the issue, he was taken to the woodshed, privately and publicly.
The topic, of course, is PeachCare, the imperiled state-federal health insurance program for 273,000 children of the working poor in Georgia. A federal $131 million shortfall has already sent bureaucrats into lockdown mode. No new kids will be added after March 11.
All their efforts have been for the children - red and yellow, black and white, Republicans say. And it would be wrong to doubt that all are precious in their sight.
But it would be just as wrong to ignore a case of man-bites-dog. And the sight of Republicans fighting tooth-and-nail for a federal social program fits that description.
The reason is simple, though it’s usually left unspoken. PeachCare is a program that serves a Republican audience trapped on the unforgiving side of suburban life - the convenience store worker, the discount store clerk, the preacher, whose employers can’t or won’t offer family health insurance.
Think NASCAR moms and NASCAR dads. People too rich for Medicaid, but too poor for Aetna.
By far, Gwinnett is home to more PeachCare kids - 32,000 - than any other county in the state. Cobb County, another Republican bastion, comes in a distant second.
“These are working families in Georgia. Working, paying taxes, obeying the law,” House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) told reporters last week. “Candidly, most of the members of PeachCare live in Republican congressional districts. These are my voters.”
Specifically, more than one quarter of all PeachCare kids live in the largely suburban districts of U.S. Rep. John Linder, to the northeast, and U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, to the northwest.
PeachCare officials declined to offer any explanation for their program’s suburban concentration. Educated theories at the state Capitol focused on the squeeze created by high cost of housing and transportation in metro Atlanta.
Right now, PeachCare families can earn up to 235 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s $48,000 for a family of four. But take out rent or mortage, a monthly car payment plus food - and health insurance can quickly be reduced to an asprin and a pair of crossed fingers.
The PeachCare crisis has set off an already heated debate between Republicans who put a priority on fiscal restraint, and those who say that the GOP ignores at its peril an issue that’s reaching ever deeper into middle-class ranks.
“Georgia knew three years ago how much money they were going to get, knew the funding formula, and they overspent,” said U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Sharpsburg.
Said U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal of Hall County: “Sometimes you get into situations where you start looking at the federal government for everything.”
Keen, the House majority leader conservative enough that he once served as leader of the Georgia Christian Coalition, called the comments “disappointing.”
On Friday, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle spoke of a day, after the current situation is resolved, when Georgia’s program might be expanded to cover more children. The Illinois version, through higher premiums, covers kids in families with a combined income of $80,000, he said.
But in the meantime, cuts are in store for PeachCare. A bill introduced in the House would limit benefits to families hovering at 200 percent over the poverty line. More than 30,000 kids would be stripped of their coverage.
Speaker Glenn Richardson introduced the measure himself, an indication that he knows that the move - regardless of the necessity - could prove risky to his Republican team come the next Election Day.
Richardson lives in Paulding County, which ranks 9th of 159 Georgia counties in terms of PeachCare kids served.
