Carolina Journal News Reports
CJ Series

McCrory Administration

In 2013, Pat McCrory became North Carolina's third Republican governor since the 19th century and the first to govern with a General Assembly under Republican control. <i>CJ</i>'s reporting on the administration's policies are collected here.

(5.20.13) Institute of Medicine Study Overstates Number of Uninsured Due to Medicaid Rejection
RALEIGH — A study by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine concludes that 500,000 people would be left uninsured by the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act. But the estimate is contradicted by that same study, as well as other state sources.

(5.20.13) Telemedicine Initiative Could Deliver Mental Health Services More Effectively
RALEIGH — Under the proposal, officials at emergency rooms or jails would be able to connect with psychiatric professionals in real time via two-way video for assessments and care instructions. Such a system could reduce the time it takes for a patient to receive care, and free up emergency room and psychiatric hospital beds much faster, reducing costs.

(5.14.13) McCrory’s Medicaid Team Pitching Reforms to Skeptical Public
GREENSBORO — The physicians, health care organizations, academics, and interested citizens gathered at the town hall meeting Thursday in the Old Guilford County Courthouse were boisterous in opposing Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos’ advocacy of proposed free-market reforms to Medicaid.

(5.09.13) McCrory Plan Uses Highway Dollars Wisely
The governor's plan for transportation funding allows smarter spending of the money we now collect.

(4.26.13) McCrory Says State Information Technology Must Keep Pace With Private Sector
RALEIGH – Gov. Pat McCrory announced Thursday that state government would house an Information Technology Innovation Center as information specialists seek to solve technology problems and collaborate on solutions. Chris Estes, state government’s chief information officer, said state agencies will start measuring their success against businesses with large online presences.

(4.23.13) Audit Slams Information Technology Cost Overruns
RALEIGH — Among the 84 Information Technology Services projects the auditor’s office reviewed, costs were $356.3 million more than originally estimated, or about twice the cost. Projects took about 389 days longer to complete than state agencies originally estimated, the report says.

(4.04.13) McCrory Announces Bold Medicaid Proposal
RALEIGH — Gov. Pat McCrory hopes to inject market-based solutions into the state’s costly Medicaid system, shifting the burden of controlling systemic budget overruns from state taxpayers to managed care contractors that would offer competing statewide plans. McCrory wants the plan to be ready for a July 2015 rollout.

(4.04.13) CJ Editorial: A (Mostly) Wise and Frugal Budget
The governor's first budget doesn't try to do too much, and that's a good thing.

(3.26.13) Obamacare’s Impact on Low-Income Workers Debated
RALEIGH — Tax subsidies in Obamacare could push at least half of privately insured, lower-income North Carolinians into the federal health exchange and off of private coverage, critics of the federal health reform law say. Backers of the law say such “crowd-out” will be much smaller, perhaps less than 10 percent.

(3.21.13) McCrory’s Initial Budget Shores Up Existing Programs
RALEIGH — Gov. Pat McCrory unveiled his first budget Wednesday that would spend $20.6 billion in the next fiscal year, an increase of about 2.2 percent over the current fiscal year’s General Fund budget. The total state budget, including federal funds, fee collections, and other revenues, is $49.6 billion.

(3.06.13) McCrory Hits Liberal Groups For ‘Evisceration’ Plans
RALEIGH — Gov. Pat McCrory, in a press conference Tuesday that touched also on voter ID, fracking, and illegal-immigrant driver's licenses, said it is “reprehensible” that a smear campaign is being organized against him and other Republican leaders by liberal groups seeking to derail their ability to govern.

(2.20.13) McCrory Signs Unemployment Insurance Reforms
RALEIGH — House Bill 4 increases taxes for some employers, shortens the number of weeks an unemployed worker is eligible for benefits, and reduces the maximum benefits such a person can receive. The federal government has slapped a surcharge on businesses as a means of repaying a $2.5 billion debt accumulated during the Great Recession.

(2.14.13) DHHS Secretary Tells Lawmakers Of Agency Disarray
RALEIGH — Secretary Aldona Wos said the Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s second-largest bureaucracy with an $18 billion budget, is entangled in legal woes, lacks supervisory accountability, rushes multimillion-dollar payments through chaotic processes, and routinely fails to complete timely financial and operational reports vital to legislative oversight and department effectiveness.

(2.01.13) PARODY: Perdue Shares Job-Announcement Form With McCrory
RALEIGH — In honor of the Department of Commerce's first jobs announcement since Pat McCrory became governor, Carolina Journal has decided to share the template McCrory and his recent predecessors have used to take credit for positive economic news in North Carolina.

(1.16.13) Rally Urges Republican Officials To Nullify Obamacare
RALEIGH — Speakers at the Jan. 9 rally called on Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and Republican members of the General Assembly to return $73.5 million in what they called federal “bribe” money Democratic former Gov. Bev Perdue accepted to set up a state health insurance exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act.

(1.14.13) Prospective Charter Schools Applications Surge Into Raleigh
RALEIGH — Potential charter school operators, including two that would operate online, flooded the state with 154 letters of intent to open in fall 2014, punctuating a growing appetite for alternatives to traditional public education.

(1.12.13) McCrory Sees Promise in North Carolina‘s Main Streets
RALEIGH — Pat McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor, is the first Republican governor inaugurated in North Carolina since Jim Martin in January 1989. McCrory used a theme of government backing Main Street, not hindering it, throughout his inaugural address.

(12.14.12) New DHHS Secretary Wos Will Oversee Medicaid, Obamacare Exchanges
RALEIGH — Lame duck Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue signed up North Carolina for a federal-state partnership to create a health insurance exchange but McCrory, a Republican, said Thursday he has yet to decide whether to leave the partnership in place, create a state exchange, or opt out, having North Carolina join an exchange run by the federal government.