Bottoms Joins Hundreds of Georgians at Macon Town Hall to Discuss Expanding Medicaid

Keisha also called out Rick Jackson getting exposed for extending a contract with the state of Georgia after promising to “unwind” his business with the state

Macon, Ga. — Yesterday in Macon, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms joined more than 500 Georgians at a town hall to answer questions about the issues that matter to Macon families and share her plans to expand Medicaid, support Georgia’s small businesses, and invest in education by guaranteeing pre-k and raising teacher pay.

Read Excerpts from Keisha’s Remarks Below:

“I want to take teachers’ starting salaries up to $60,000. If you care about the cost of housing in this state, I'm your candidate,” said Keisha. “If you care about Medicaid expansion in the state and the cost of health care in this state, you can either vote for the guy who got the $700 million dollars in health care contracts based on the broken health care system in this state, or you can vote for me, the person who wants to expand Medicaid.”

“Rick Jackson is a man who looked in our faces — because he’s always playing in our faces — and said that he would not continue to do business with the state of Georgia if he were elected governor. He then extended his no-bid contract with the state of Georgia. This is the man who wants you to trust him on data centers, but he invests in data centers.”

“The budget for the state of Georgia begins in the governor's office. So I mentioned preparing our state agencies for Medicaid expansion, but also I want the people to see a budget that reflects the priorities of everybody across the state. That means addressing some of these funding gaps from public health to our mental health services to VA services. I want us to fill in those gaps. I want our budget to reflect that, and also it's my hope that by the time the legislators come out of session sometime in the spring, that we will have some meaningful legislation on Medicaid expansion, fully funding education in the state, and those teacher pay raises. I would love to see the corporate housing trust funds as well,” Keisha continued.

“I would like to create an office, a division, within state governments focused on micro businesses, those businesses with zero to 25 employees. There's a division that focuses on small businesses, but not micro businesses. What I have heard people say repeatedly is that when there are programs through the state of Georgia, by the time they find out about them, either money is gone or the programs closed and it is a lack of access,”  Keisha said. “Many of these offices that were throughout communities have physically been closed. I want to have mobile offices that come throughout the state, that have come throughout rural Georgia, to make sure that people can walk in and access those services.”