By Jill Nolin | Editor
“It’s almost kind of silly that our lawmakers continue to hold it at arm’s length when really the federal version is shaped or has been shaped by the Georgia model.” - Laura Colbert, executive director of the consumer advocacy group Georgians for a Healthy Future, referring to Medicaid expansion today.
Trey Wright receives Medicaid coverage via Georgia Pathways to Coverage. The program is slated to expire at the end of the year unless it’s renewed. Photo courtesy of Trey Wright
HEALTH
By Briah Lumpkins and Sam Whitehead, KFF Health News
After years of searching for affordable health insurance, Trey Wright discovered Georgia Pathways to Coverage.
The state’s limited Medicaid expansion program allowed the 27-year-old living in the rural city of Jesup in southeastern Georgia to finally visit a primary care doctor regularly. It also covered weekly shots to manage an array of allergies, saving him more than $1,700 a year in out-of-pocket costs, he said.
Gov. Brian Kemp pursued Pathways as an alternative to full Medicaid expansion, which 40 other states and Washington, D.C., adopted as part of the Affordable Care Act to make more low-income people eligible for healthcare coverage.
Launched in 2023, Georgia’s program currently provides health coverage through Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program, to more than 20,000 people. It requires those enrolled to prove they’re working or doing other qualifying activities such as workforce training or community service — and it served, in part, as a model for the Medicaid work requirements that will roll out across most of the country starting Jan. 1.
Now Pathways, one of Kemp’s main health policy initiatives, is slated to expire at the end of the year unless it’s renewed.
King County, Washington, election workers dump out a bin full of ballots from a local drop box to sort ahead of the midterm election on Oct. 29, 2026, in Renton, Washington. (Photo by Jake Goldstein-Street/Washington State Standard)
2026 ELECTION
By Ashley Murray and Jonathan Shorman
When the polls close Tuesday night, the 2026 U.S. election will go down as one of history’s most expensive and extraordinarily ugly midterms — galvanizing record-breaking early voter turnout among a deeply divided electorate.
Voters on Saturday crossed the high-water mark of 52.7 million early votes cast, surpassing the midterm record set in 2022, though analysts were reluctant to translate it into a Democratic wave on the way.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice continued to run into a firewall of federal judges, losing its previous cases to take over mail-in balloting and obtain state voter rolls in advance of the midterms. The Trump DOJ actions nonetheless rattled state officials who hold the constitutional responsibility to conduct their elections.
Voters mark their ballots during the first day of early voting in Bismarck, North Dakota, on Oct. 22, 2026. Experts and voting rights advocates are bracing for the potential of federal influence over the results of next week’s midterm elections. (Photo by Jack Dura/North Dakota Monitor)
VOTING
By Kevin Hardy
As concerns rise about the potential for federal influence over the results of next week’s midterm elections, many voting experts and advocates remain confident that the nation’s highly localized systems of administering and counting votes will persevere.
Facing sinking approval ratings over high prices, the White House has amped up attacks on state-administered elections: In recent weeks, the federal government sued Alaska and California to intervene in their elections and demanded election officials in Washington state pull aside ballots of 400 alleged noncitizens — laying the groundwork for a high-stakes showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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ICYMI FROM THE RECORDER
Obama rallies with Georgia Democratic candidates as early voting winds down | Alander Rocha and Maya Homan
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