Sen. Raphael Warnock focuses on health care in Dalton, Georgia campaign stop – Chattanooga Times Free Press

October 28, 2022 at 9:00 p.m.
by Andrew Wilkins

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock continued his quest for re-election Friday with a speech centered around improving health care in Georgia before a crowd of about 100 people at the Mack Gaston Community Center in Dalton.
Warnock, a minister as well as Democrat, is running for full six-year term. His Republican opponent is former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker. Warnock is attempting to keep the seat he won in a 2021 special election.
Despite Georgia being one of 12 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, its citizens are still paying the same taxes as residents of states that have expanded the federal assistance program for low-income patients’ medical expenses, Warnock said.
“They’re (states that expanded Medicaid) getting subsidized health care in their state, while our hospitals are closing,” Warnock said.
Ten Georgia hospitals have closed in 10 years, he said, all of them in rural areas.
Early voting in Georgia has already begun, and Warnock urged everyone to vote before election day on Nov. 8.
Warnock said he’s been fighting for Medicaid expansion since long before he was elected. He said he believes health care is a human right and was even arrested while protesting for improved health care for Georgians.
“It seemed like a small price to pay for such an important issue,” Warnock said. “And if you’re the pastor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church, you can’t be afraid to get arrested every now and then. For a good reason.”
As minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church, King’s former church in Atlanta, Warnock said he still preaches every Sunday.
Warnock said he authored a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that capped the price of insulin for Medicare recipients to $35. Warnock added that 11% of adults in Georgia have diabetes.
In their debate earlier this month, Walker agreed that the cost of insulin needed to be reduced, but he added that people also need to eat right. Warnock said Walker was blaming people for their illness.
Insulin has been around for 100 years, and the patent was sold for $1, Warnock said.
“No matter how you got the diabetes, that doesn’t explain why greedy pharmaceutical companies are price gouging the insulin,” he said.
The Walker campaign did not respond to a request for comment before deadline, but on its website, the campaign says it wants to lower health care costs by “increasing competitive market options to ensure that every Georgian has access to quality, affordable health care.”

(READ MORE: U.S. Sen. Warnock visits Northwest Georgia, says public policy is ‘letter to our children’)
Warnock said he didn’t forget about the people who put him into office when he was elected in 2021. That’s why he and fellow Democrats passed what he called the largest tax cut for the middle and working class in American history: the expanded the Child Tax Credit.
“This election is about the future,” Warnock said. “It’s about who were are moving forward together.”
He said he knows Georgia will re-elect him, because its voters elected him last time — referring to the election that gave Georgia two Democratic senators and control of the U.S. Senate. The pundits didn’t see them coming last time either, Warnock said.
Marcus Flowers, who spoke at the same event Friday, is challenging freshman Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to represent Georgia’s District 14 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The district covers the Northwest Georgia counties of Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Floyd, Gordon, Murray, Paulding, Polk, Walker and Whitfield and part of Cobb.
(READ MORE: Warnock, Walker are dealt a Libertarian wild card in Georgia)
“There’s so much at stake this election. So much,” Flowers said, including our democracy, Social Security, health care, infrastructure and both small and large businesses.
Flowers said Greene is too busy campaigning for other candidates around the country and not fighting for the needs of the district. People like Greene, Flowers said, who seek to divide people, don’t belong in the U.S. House.
He said that he’s an Army veteran, former government official and natural bridge builder who can work across the political divide.
“I will build that bridge so that we can remember who we are, Americans, all of us,” Flowers said.
The Greene campaign could not be reached for comment, but in a debate with Flowers earlier this month, Greene said she’s fighting to secure the nation’s border, protect American freedoms and stop the Democrats’ “America last communist policies.”
Greene said she’s speaking the same truths of Americans in her district and that she was elected to fight for her constituents — and that won’t change if she’s re-elected.
When asked by the moderator what she’s done for the district, Greene said she’s brought in grants for local sheriff’s offices and local businesses and worked hard on flood recovery in Summerville.
The incumbent said it’s been hard to pass legislation in a Democratic-controlled house, but Greene said she’ll continue to work to uphold the district’s traditional conservative values and vote against the Biden administration’s radical legislation.
Debby Peppers, chair of the Whitfield County Democrat Party, told attendees in Dalton that if they have Republican friends or family members, they should tell them about Flowers.
(READ MORE: Greene, Flowers spar over who best reflects 14th District voters)
Wanda Cooper is a nurse who lives in Dalton. What’s important to her this election is protecting Social Security, Medicare, elections and pharmacy issues. When her dog was diagnosed with diabetes, Cooper said its insulin cost $150 a month, and its shelf life was reduced from three months to just one month.
“That was a little dog,” Cooper said, “Can you think of how expensive it would be for humans?”
Also at the rally, Cooper said she appreciates Democratic-passed legislation that made insulin more affordable, saying pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of the American people.
Contact Andrew Wilkins at [email protected] or 423-757-6659. Follow him on Twitter @tweetatwilkins.

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