In Georgia midterms, health care takes a back seat to the economy
In Georgia's midterm elections, Democrats are campaigning on health care issues like Medicaid and abortion, but the economy remains at the fore for voters.
Georgia Democrats are trying to motivate voters on health care after a spate of hospital closures, GOP policies limiting Medicaid, abortion restrictions and rising medical costs. But even reliable Democratic voters with pressing medical needs are still grappling with economic worries, raising questions about how far health care issues can go in turning out the base or in driving independents and nonvoters toward Democrats.
Shortly before Atlanta Medical Center in the downtown-adjacent Old Fourth Ward neighborhood closed for good last week, June Barlow Callaway learned that a CT scan performed there had detected cancer in her throat. Callaway had worked for the 460-bed hospital’s food-service contractor for 22 years, but after getting her diagnosis in October, she concluded it was time to “sit down.”
“Being 73, nobody is going to hire me,” Callaway says. “My body just won’t take this push and pulling no more.”
Within weeks, she started chemotherapy — at Grady Memorial, now one of two remaining hospitals in downtown Atlanta — stocked her pantry with items from a local food bank and filed for unemployment.
Grady Memorial is one of two remaining hospitals in downtown Atlanta.David Goldman / AP fileCallaway is among the more than 2 million Georgians who have voted early. She chose Democrats down the ballot, as she has most of her life, in part because Sen. Raphael Warnock and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have campaigned on lowering health care costs, she says. But even for her, health considerations aren't necessarily top of mind.
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