ATLANTA — Officials say the state of Georgia would save $90 million per year if it withdraws from HealthCare.gov -- the insurance-buying website that materialized under the Affordable Care Act.
A recent Brookings Institution report predicted Georgia's effort would eliminate health care for tens of thousands of Georgians.
The state says it wants to eliminate HealthCare.gov because doing so would actually make it easier for health insurance buyers to find more choices elsewhere.
"It’s a very limited marketplace," said Kyle Wingfield of the conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation.
Wingfield says HealthCare.gov doesn’t list many of the less expensive health insurance options available in Georgia.
"People can’t see all the plans that they potentially could buy. They’d only see the plans for which they could potentially be eligible for subsidies," Wingfield told 11Alive News Wednesday.
Gov. Brian Kemp proposes eliminating HealthCare.gov in Georgia and moving those customers to a private state-backed site.
Wingfield says it would be a more comprehensive site than HealthCare.gov.
"The choices do exist if people know to go looking for them. But they have to go to multiple places," he said.
RELATED: New report says Georgia's healthcare waiver proposal would actually reduce people who can access it
Wingfield says the state would save $90 million a year if it pulled out of HealthCare.gov.
Musician Jason Steele uses HealthCare.gov, which he says helped get him insurance that covers a pre-existing condition. He does not want the state to eliminate the site.
"By losing the HealthCare.gov, and the ease of use of what that is, to be able to sign up ... I probably wouldn't have been able to get the insurance," Steele told us last week.
But Wingfield contends Kemp is trying to improve health care coverage without expanding Medicaid under Obamacare.
"The current system hasn’t been doing very well for a lot of people. it’s time to innovate and see if the private sector can do a better job than the government can," he said.
The Brookings Institution says Kemp’s plan would cause tens of thousands of Georgians to lose health insurance coverage. Wingfield says 129,000 Georgians have already left HealthCare.gov since 2016.
A spokesman for Gov. Kemp dismissed Brookings as a "left-wing think tank" opposed to market-oriented innovation.
"Georgia Access provides Georgians more choices when selecting the healthcare plan that best fits their needs, instead of forcing them to use a clunky, government-run website," spokesman Cody Hall wrote in an email.
He did not respond to a specific question about whether the move away from HealthCare.gov would save the state $90 million.