On June 27, 2025, as the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on the GOP budget bill, Georgia leaders and health care advocates held a press call highlighting the GOP U.S. Senate candidates’ support for a bill that “could cost Georgia rural hospitals $540 million,” and “put at least four Georgia hospitals at risk of cutting services or closing,” according to new reporting by the AJC.

The speakers included DPG Chair Charlie Bailey, State Representative Sam Park, and Dr. Karen Kinsell, the only physician in Fort Gaines, where 40% of residents live below the poverty line

The Republicans running for U.S. Senate have proudly stood by what would be the largest cut to Medicaid in history, and devastate rural health care in Georgia:

• Insurance Commissioner John King said he would “absolutely” vote to pass the Medicaid cuts in the GOP’s budget bill if he were in the Senate.
• “MAGA warrior” Rep. Buddy Carter told Georgians that he “wanted to cut Medicaid more.”
• Rep. Mike Collins – a MAGA extremist who is reportedly weighing a run for U.S. Senate — said he wants people to “get off of Medicaid, get off of Social Security.”

Key Quotes:

DPG Chair Charlie Bailey:

“Buddy Carter, John King, and Mike Collins care more about rewarding billionaires and big corporations with massive tax cuts than they care about the hardworking people in rural Georgia who cannot afford to have these Republicans gutting their health care in the U.S. Senate.” 

State Rep. Sam Park:

“In the state legislature, we know that Georgia cannot backfill this massive loss of resources, and Republicans running for Senate have no plan for how states like ours will absorb these devastating cuts, and no plan for the rural patients who could lose their only hospital.”

Dr. Karen Kinsell:

“Our rural health care system is barely hanging on by a thread in certain parts of the state, including mine, and cuts to Medicaid that Buddy Carter, John King, and Mike Collins support could send it into freefall. Without Medicaid, these hospitals cannot survive, and there is no question about that.”