By Guest Columnist LAURA HARKER, who joined the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute in 2016 as a health policy analyst. She is responsible for researching and reporting on Georgia’s health policies and related spending

A ranking Republican Georgia senator who long panned the idea of expanding Medicaid is working on legislation to make it happen. The conservative Georgia Chamber of Commerce just made an economic case for Medicaid expansion as the best way for the state to get a handle on its health care costs and boost struggling rural hospitals.