Stacey Abrams stops in Albany on governor campaign tour
ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - Stacey Abrams stopped by the Good Life City Friday to speak with Georgians about her plans as she’s running for governor.
As part of her One Georgia Tour, she hosted a roundtable at Albany Museum of Art with students from Albany State University (ASU), taking questions and going over some of the policies on her agenda.
Students and people in the audience brought up topics like health care, education and creating more jobs in rural Georgia.
Nia Kimbro is a senior nursing major at ASU. Because of that, she brought up an issue many rural communities in South Georgia face.
“What are your plans to ensure everyone can not only have access to primary care physicians and or clinics but be able to afford it as well,” Kimbro asked the democratic gubernatorial candidate.
Abrams’ answer was Medicaid expansion.
“Medicaid expansion provides insurance for 500,000 Georgians who currently do not have it. In Dougherty County, that’s 7,100 people who would suddenly have health insurance,” said Abrams.
She also said Medicaid expansion would also bring more jobs to rural areas.
“In rural communities without health care, you cannot bring manufacturing, you can’t bring advance energy, you can’t bring a finance company, because people aren’t going to locate if they know there’s no one there to help their community. They know their workers aren’t going to stay. We have to do Medicaid expansion for that purpose,” said Abrams.
Abrams also spoke about fully funding education, adding that she wants to restore full, free tuition at technical colleges and cancel up to $50,000 of student debt.
“Then you have the ability to make choices because your student loan debt has been canceled up to $50,000. And I’m going to work with our senators to push that at the federal level,” said Abrams.
She is making a few more stops on this tour. On Saturday, she will be in Midway then to Augusta. The tour will end on March 22 in Athens.
Gov. Brian Kemp’s office issued a statement to WALB News 10 about Abram’s campaign.
”While Gov. Kemp has overseen historic growth in jobs, investment and opportunity in rural Georgia, Stacey Abrams spent the last three years chasing the covers of style magazines, courting liberal dark money and championing the policies that have ruined the economies of places like New York and California. Gov. Kemp will continue fighting to put hardworking Georgians first,” the statement reads.
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