One million, seven hundred thousand people in Georgia received Medicaid coverage as of April this year—and the majority of them are children. That's 17 percent of the state's population, or nearly 1 in 5 people. Georgia spent less in Medicaid expenditures on each enrollee than the national average—$3,916 vs. the $5,563 spent nationally. Because of this, under the Senate-proposed health care bill, Georgia likely would have received a lower per capita amount than states that expanded Medicaid or spent more per person.

If the fallout from Congress' not-yet-determined decision on health care results in cuts to Medicaid, how will the state decide who can't receive that assistance?

Will it be the 69-year-old intellectually and physically disabled woman who is only able to remain in her home by receiving home- and community-based services provided with Medicaid funds? Without those services, this woman, whose case is like so many of the clients I represent, would be required to live in a nursing home, which she could not afford on her $760 Social Security retirement income.