The Jolt: Wellstar says Fulton leaders trying for ‘cheap political points’
Under fire from multiple fronts, the Wellstar Health System is pushing back against political forces assailing its decision to shutter the Atlanta Medical Center last year, even as it pursues a likely profitable expansion in Augusta.
In an exclusive statement to us Wednesday, the health care system said its effort to find “another health system partner and work with government officials to find a solution” started more than two years before it announced the Atlanta hospital’s closure. And they named names.
“This included direct discussions with policymakers in Fulton County, including Chairman Robb Pitts as early as February 2020. Unfortunately, local policymakers declined to provide any support to AMC as they rightly have and do with the other safety net hospital in Atlanta.”
That’s a reference to Grady Memorial Hospital, which is owned jointly by DeKalb and Fulton counties.
Wellstar is facing withering criticism for abruptly shutting down AMC on the outskirts of downtown Atlanta. The closure instantly became a rallying cry for Democrats, who called for Medicaid expansion, and led to backlash from local officials who said they were hardly consulted about the plans.
Some legislators sought to block a $105 million taxpayer-funded deal to update a records system for the Medical College of Georgia that could benefit Wellstar in the process.
And Pitts led a group of metro Atlanta leaders who filed two complaints last week asking federal regulators to probe Wellstar’s nonprofit status and requesting an investigation into whether the system violated civil rights protections, an accusation Wellstar called “shameful and false.”
In the statement, Wellstar added that it shouldn’t face political fallout for shuttering the chronically underfunded hospital.
“These difficult circumstances and ongoing community discussions should not give license to some politicians to attack an entire healthcare system — home to 24,000 team members and caregivers — to score cheap political points,” it read.
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LISTEN UP. The midweek edition of the Politically Georgia podcast is ready in your feeds. We’re taking a virtual tour of the bills at the General Assembly that are alive, dead, or something in between.
Listen and subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.
And be sure to call us on the 24-hour Politically Georgia Podcast Hotline at (770) 810-5297 if you have a question or a comment on Georgia politics. We’ll play it on Friday’s episode.
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UNDER THE GOLD DOME, Legislative Day 34:
- 8 a.m.: Committee meetings begin;
- 10 a.m.: The House gavels in;
- 10 a.m.: The Senate convenes.
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ON THE MOVE. Speaking of bills that are alive and well at the General Assembly, several saw action on Tuesday:
- House Bill 162, a $1 billion tax rebate for individuals and couples filing jointly, passed the state Senate 46 to 7;
- House Resolution 66, which retroactively ratifies Gov. Brian Kemp’s 2022 gas tax suspensions, passed the Senate unanimously;
- The House Public Health Committee passed Senate Bill 140, a bill to ban gender affirming surgery and hormone replacement therapy for minors. Our colleague Maya T. Prabhu covered the hearing.
- The Senate Transportation Committee held a 7 a.m. hearing on House Bill 189, the closely watched bill to increase maximum allowed truck weights for tractor trailers on Georgia roads. State Rep. Steven Meeks presented a substitute to the House-passed version, expanding the goods and distances that would be included in the increase, just before the hearing began. The committee did not vote.
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PSC WARNING SHOT. Several of the Georgia Senate’s most prominent bipartisan members rallied behind a resolution that urges the Public Service Commission not to dump cost overruns from the Plant Vogtle nuclear project on Georgia Power customers.
Senate Resolution 300 asks the commission to “protect 2.7 million electricity customers from unjustly paying for construction mistakes, delays and work corrections” from the plant.
The project has been dogged by costly delays that could send ratepayers’ utility bills soaring. The two units at the plant are more than six years behind schedule and their total cost has climbed above $35 billion — more than twice what was initially projected.
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RALSTON TRIBUTE. The Georgia House hosted an emotional tribute to the late House Speaker David Ralston on Tuesday, which would have been his 69th birthday. With Ralston’s family in attendance, members recalled his rise to leadership and honored his legacy. They also played a video that left many in the chamber teary-eyed.
Watch the video here:
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KEMP WATCH. There’s some more buzz out there about a potential opening for Gov. Brian Kemp to run for president in 2024.
Albert Hunt, the former Bloomberg editor and Wall Street Journal honcho, wrote in The Hill that Kemp made his “final four” in the upcoming White House contest. He won the “Trump light” bracket. Other finalists: former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
And Tim Miller, the prominent Bulwark writer, questioned why pundits weren’t taking Kemp’s chances more seriously. “Why not Kemp?”
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden will deliver a speech from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on lowering prescription drug costs.
- The Senate is focused on confirmations, including that of former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be ambassador to India.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on gun safety.
- The House is in recess this week, but the Homeland Security Committee will host a field hearing on border security in McAllen, Texas. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is a member of the committee and will attend.
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MORE INSULIN NEWS. Drug company Novo Nordisk became the latest manufacturer to announce that it was drastically reducing the cost of insulin for all customers.
The company said Tuesday it will slash the price of several pre-filled insulin pens and vials up to 75% starting in January 2024. The new prices still fall short of the $35 out-of-pocket cost cap that Democrats, including Georgia’s U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, have advocated for.
But Novo Nordisk said it has other programs that allow customers to get insulin at no or very low cost and that it will continue to work with stakeholders to find other ways to cut costs.
Warnock celebrated the company’s shift which came on the heels of Eli Lilly’s March 1 announcement that it would adhere to the $35 cap for all customers.
“After months of advocacy, we’ve got the momentum,” Warnock said on Twitter. “Let’s use it to lower insulin costs for good.”
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GUN CONTROL. After his Tuesday meeting with victims of the January mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, President Joe Biden unveiled steps his administration is planning to curb gun violence.
A new executive order is aimed at increasing the number of background checks conducted as a precursor to gun sales and expanding the use of “red flag” laws to prohibit people deemed a threat from obtaining guns. Biden also encouraged the Federal Trade Commission to produce a report analyzing gun manufacturers’ marketing to minors.
And he again called for a renewal of the federal ban on assault-style weapons.
“Our Republican friends let it expire, and — 10 years later — mass shootings tripled since then — tripled,” the president said. “So, let’s finish the job. Ban assault weapons. Ban them again. Do it now.”
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JOHN LEWIS STAMP. The U.S. Postal Service announced that its stamp honoring Congressman John Lewis will debut on July 21 at Atlanta’s main post office. That date lands close to the three-year anniversary of Lewis’s death from pancreatic cancer.
We already reported that the forever stamp’s preliminary design depicts the civil rights icon wearing a dark suit and blue tie and is based on a Time magazine cover.
The stamp margin paper, also known as selvage, features a photograph of Lewis taken in 1963 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, as he conducted workshops on nonviolent protests.
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BATTER UP. Spring training is well underway, and we have a few baseball-related updates for the fans among you:
- Several House lawmakers signed onto a resolution to urge the Baseball Hall of Fame to induct Braves legend Dale Murphy for his “immensely positive impact on the sport.”
- Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who was a Minor Leaguer for the Marlins, has a column in the Miami Herald urging Republicans to adapt to changing times much like Major League Baseball. A snippet:
In recent years, fielders have moved from their natural positions where the algorithms predicted where the ball would go. The result has been more outs and fewer runs. The Republican Party has strayed from its conservative principles and embraced populism. Rather than make the case to voters about our ideas, we have embraced the politics of grievance and anger. Instead of shaping public opinion, we have been driven by it.
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DOG OF THE DAY. We’ve been wonderfully overwhelmed by Jolt readers sending in their dogs, cats and even rabbits (stay tuned for that one) to be Dog of the Day.
But one of the very first submissions for this feature was Ebenezer, the beautiful Boykin spaniel mix who calls former LaGrange mayor Jim Thornton his person.
Ebenezer lives in LaGrange, where Thornton is now the director of governmental relations for the Georgia Municipal Association. More important for our purposes, Thornton is a religious Jolt reader, Politically Georgia listener, and caretaker of the handsomest hound in town. Congratulations, Ebenezer!
Send us your pups of any political persuasion — and cats, etc. — to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us on Twitter @MurphyAJC.
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AS ALWAYS, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
About the Authors
Patricia Murphy is the AJC's senior political columnist. She was previously a nationally syndicated columnist for CQ Roll Call, national political reporter for the Daily Beast and Politics Daily, and wrote for The Washington Post and Garden & Gun. She graduated from Vanderbilt and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
Tia Mitchell is the AJC’s Washington Bureau Chief and a co-host of the "Politically Georgia" podcast. She writes about Georgia’s congressional delegation, campaigns, elections and the impact that decisions made in D.C. have on residents of the Peach State.
