In the waning months of the Trump administration, Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unlawfully approved Georgia’s Section 1332 waiver, pushed by Gov. Brian Kemp, which would end its residents’ access to healthcare.gov without offering an equivalent insurance marketplace.

The current administration’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of the Treasury requested public comment on this Section 1332 waiver. Planned Parenthood Southeast and Feminist Women’s Health Center submitted a comment, urging the administration to move expeditiously to rescind the waiver “to guarantee that Georgia consumers will continue to have access to the federal Exchange.”

Georgia’s Section 1332 waiver threatens to tear a hole in the ACA—overriding Congress’s considered legislative judgments and eviscerating the ACA’s substantial achievements. By doing away with healthcare.gov, the “Georgia Access Model” will force consumers to shop through multiple private insurance companies, agents, and brokers, rather than through a single, consolidated marketplace. In this respect, the Georgia Access Model will essentially return the health insurance shopping experience for Georgia consumers to how it stood before the ACA was enacted.

In 2021, on behalf of PPSE and FWHC, we filed a lawsuit to challenge the unlawful waiver approval. That lawsuit is stayed while the current administration evaluates the waiver.