In Georgia Runoffs, Dems Are Running Hard On Health Care. Republicans? Not So Much

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Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, greets a supporter with an elbow bump at a drive-through event to pick up yard signs last month in Alpharetta, Ga. Ossoff is in a runoff with Republican David Perdue, the incumbent, for the U.S. Senate.

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Vice President Pence waves to supporters during a Nov. 20 rally in Canton, Ga. Pence appeared alongside U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The Republican incumbents are defending their seats in a Jan. 5 runoff.

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The Rev. Raphael Warnock kicks off his runoff campaign Nov. 12 to try to unseat Loeffler. Warnock leads Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and has been politically active in the fight to expand Medicaid to uninsured Georgians.

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The Rev. Raphael Warnock kicks off his runoff campaign Nov. 12 to try to unseat Loeffler. Warnock leads Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and has been politically active in the fight to expand Medicaid to uninsured Georgians.

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Warnock opened his runoff campaign to unseat Loeffler with a modestly attended Nov. 12 event that focused entirely on health care. So did Ossoff in his bid to win Perdue’s seat.

«This is why these Senate runoffs are so vital, Ossoff said at a small, physically distanced event Nov. 10 in the shadow of the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.

Ossoff and Warnock support adding a public insurance option to the Affordable Care Act. They also have emphasized the role Democrats will play in resurrecting key parts of the law if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn it. The justices are set to make a ruling next year.

«If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, it will be up to Congress to decide how to legislate such that preexisting conditions remain covered, Ossoff said.

Democratic voters such as Janel Green connect with that message. She’s from the nearby suburb of Decatur and is fighting breast cancer — for the second time. Green is worried that if the protections in the Affordable Care Act disappear, her private health insurance might try to deny her coverage.

«I have to worry about whether or not next year in open enrollment that I won’t be discriminated against, that I won’t have limits that would then potentially end my life, she said.

More than one-quarter of Georgians have preexisting conditions that could make it hard to get coverage if the Affordable Care Act is struck down, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

That possibility is also driving Atlanta resident Herschel Jones to get involved in the runoff. On a recent weekday morning he dropped by an Ossoff campaign office to pick up a yard sign.

Jones, who has diabetes, is insured through the Department of Veterans Affairs. He said everyone deserves access to health care.

«It’s a main issue, because the Affordable Care Act benefits all those individuals who might have preexisting conditions, Jones said.

One reason why Ossoff and Warnock are running so much harder on health care than Perdue and Loeffler is because that strategy paid off for Democrats in the general election, said Ken Thorpe, a health policy professor at Emory University.

President-elect Joe Biden can thank independent voters for his win in Georgia, Thorpe said, and they were drawn to him because of his promise to uphold Obamacare.

«The threat of potentially losing health insurance in the midst of this pandemic turned out to be probably the major defining issue in the election, he said.

Polling in the days leading up to the Nov. 3 election showed Democrats were motivated on the issues of health care and the coronavirus pandemic.

If Democrats want to win these Senate runoffs in Georgia, Thorpe said, they’ll need to continue to stay focused on those issues. That emphasis could help them attract additional moderate voters as well as provide the motivation to entice those in the party base to come out again and cast ballots for a second time.

«The health care issue is the probably main motivating factor that’s gonna get Democrats and independents to the polls, he continued.

But in a state that’s traditionally favored Republicans in runoff races, even with a strong health care message, it’ll be tough for Ossoff and Warnock to break that trend and unseat the Republicans, Thorpe said.

This story comes from NPR’s reporting partnership with WABE and Kaiser Health News.