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August 29, 2010

Candidates for governor talk health care at debate

By Aaron Gould Sheinin, Cameron McWhirter and Steve Visser The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Dalton Daily Citizen

DALTON — The men who want to be Georgia’s next governor clashed Saturday over tort reform, embryonic stem cell research and Medicaid funding in their first formal debate since the November ballot was set earlier this month.

Democrat Roy Barnes, Republican Nathan Deal and Libertarian John Monds appeared together for the first time in a debate sponsored by the Medical Association of Georgia at the Cobb Energy Center.

Given the sponsor’s focus, the questions were dominated by health care matters. Barnes and Deal agreed on much, including the need to create incentives to attract primary care physicians to rural parts of the state. But they differed on many other topics.

On tort reform, Deal decried a state Supreme Court ruling in March that struck down limits on jury awards in medical malpractice cases created by a landmark 2005 state law. The former congressman said the state should amend its constitution to re-create the limits.

Voters, he said, “would overwhelmingly say yes because they understand the practical consequences of it.”

But Barnes said he was firmly against amending the constitution and said juries and judges should be trusted.

“Generally, the jury does the right thing,” Barnes said. “Occasionally, they get cranked up and don’t. And in those cases we give judges the right to correct that.”

Barnes said he also favors “cracking down on frivolous cases” through fines and awarding of attorneys fees to parties who are subject to such suits.

Monds’ view came closest to that of Barnes, although he said he wasn’t familiar with the Supreme Court ruling.

“In any instance that you can, the people should be trusted and given the ability to allow their judgment to prevail,” he said, “whether it’s in the voting process or in cases with these damages.”

On Medicaid, Deal said the cost has skyrocketed and will only get worse under the federal health care bill that is now law. He said he favors requiring Medicaid co-pays for patients who visit emergency rooms for nonemergency care and would create Medicaid clinics for primary care.

“We need to change the direction of health care in our state,” Deal said, adding that school lunches should be healthier and that schools should have exercise programs that will help create a healthier population.

Monds said the way to fix Medicaid is to fix the economy. A better economy will create more jobs and lower the Medicaid rolls.

Barnes said Medicaid’s costs are not just hurting the government’s bottom line, they’re also hurting doctors, who are losing money seeing Medicaid patients due to low reimbursement rates.

Barnes said if he were a doctor, “I don’t know if I’d be accepting Medicaid right now.”

When the subject turned to stem cell research, Barnes and Deal disagreed on the use of embryos.

“I don’t oppose embryonic stem cell research,” Deal said. “What I oppose is creating life for the purpose of taking that life for research purposes.”

Deal, who voted against embryonic stem cell research while in Congress, said he favored the use of “cord” blood and other mechanisms to meet the same end result, calling for research that is “scientifically appropriate as well as morally appropriate.”

But Barnes said that’s not enough, and returned the topic in his closing statement. Banning the creation of embryos in a lab for scientific reasons “will bring embryonic research to a screeching halt. Are we going to be a modern state or are we going to go backward?”

There were few fireworks in this opening debate of the general election and the candidates largely refrained from attacking one another. Barnes and Deal, however, did clash over Deal’s refusal to release his tax records and the fact that neither had success in solving the state’s water woes in their previous positions.

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