by Maya Homan, Georgia Recorder, [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]

February 22, 2026

Democrats attempted to pass Medicaid expansion on the floor of the Senate in a legislative maneuver that was quickly shot down by their Republican counterparts Friday.

The bill they hoped to amend, Senate Bill 440, was originally intended to update and modernize laws around the state Department of Public Health. Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, a Marietta Republican who introduced the bill, described it as “another step in rolling back the red tape.”

But a pair of amendments, introduced by Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones of Augusta and Minority Whip Kim Jackson of Stone Mountain, incorporated language from two previously introduced bills to allow the state to fully expand its Medicaid program. Georgia is one of only 10 states that has not fully expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

One of the amendments included in the proposal was modeled after the Arkansas model that had previously intrigued state GOP leaders like House Speaker Jon Burns.

However, Senate Republicans shot down both amendments Friday, arguing that they had not been thoroughly vetted and that Democrats had not provided an estimate of how their proposal would impact the state’s budget.

Sen. Ben Watson, a Savannah Republican who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, urged his colleagues to vote down “Medicaid explosion, expansion, whatever you want to call it.” 

“I have no idea what Medicaid explosion would cost us now,” he added.

Senate Democrats ultimately voted to pass the underlying bill, but criticized Republicans for refusing to consider their proposal, framing it as a health care affordability policy. Jones also highlighted recent comments from President Donald Trump dismissing affordability concerns during a Thursday rally in northwest Georgia.

“He’s not addressing the affordability crisis and the other factor is Republicans are not addressing the affordability crisis, so true to our president’s way, he basically just says it doesn’t exist,” Jones said. “Today was an opportunity to actually show that Georgia is serious about the affordability crisis, and Republicans refused to do that.”

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