There were few surprises and little controversy when the Governmental Affairs Council of the Savannah Area Chamber presented its 2014 agenda to the area’s state legislators Thursday morning.
The annual Eggs & Issues breakfast, held this year at the Marriott Savannah Riverfront, gave local business leaders an opportunity to make their elected officials aware of the issues considered most critical to the area.
Funding Gov. Nathan Deal’s budget request for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project topped the list, followed by removing the sunset provision related to a sales tax exemption on general aviation parts — a nod to Gulfstream Aerospace, Savannah’s No. 1 employer.
None of the legislators were opposed to either issue.
Health care was a big topic and the only one to spark controversy. Legislators differed along party lines on Deal’s decision not to expand the Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act — which would have provided an estimated 650,000 low-income Georgians with health coverage — because it would be too expensive.
Democrats Mickey Stephens and Craig Gordon, of House Districts 165 and 163 respectively, were outspoken in their opposition to Deal’s decision. Stephens, a member of the House Health and Human Services Committee, challenged the governor “to take the politics out” of his decision.
“We have hundreds of thousands of uninsured citizens in this state,” he said. “Somebody has to pay for that. Why would we leave our federal tax dollars on the table?”
Gordon agreed, adding that the state was missing out on $40 million in revenue by refusing to go along with the federal expansion.
But Republican Sen. Buddy Carter of District 2 said $40 million would pale compared to how much higher the state’s cost of Medicaid could go.
“That’s just the cheese in the trap,” he said. “We’ve got to come up with $73 million just to cover the Medicaid program we have now. Expanding that would have a significant impact on the budget.”
District 166 Rep. Ben Watson, the only physician in the House, said funding for “safety net” hospitals such as Memorial University Medical Center — where some 18 percent of patients are Medicaid and another 20 percent are uninsured — is critical.
“But it’s like a ‘Catch 22’ in that the new health care law assumes states will accept Medicaid expansion and reduces funding for the uninsured accordingly.”
While Watson says he doesn’t have the answers, “there’s no doubt the Affordable Care Act poses a real problem for hospitals that do indigent care.”
Issues that seemed to have universal support from the local delegation — in addition to port funding and the sales tax exemption — included funding for a trauma network as well as medical education, a streamlined regulatory process for companies investing in new or upgrading existing wireless infrastructure, state funding to support local and federal Tybee Beach renourishment monies and the Board of Regents capital projects request, which includes projects for Savannah State University and Savannah Technical College.