Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation senior political analyst, discusses the recently unveiled U.S. Senate health care reform plan. Kokai offered these comments during the June 23, 2017, edition of UNC-TV’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”…
Katherine Restrepo, John Locke Foundation director of health care policy, assesses the U.S. Senate’s proposal for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Restrepo offered these comments for a June 22, 2017, report on Spectrum News.
Certificate-of-need reforms were left out of the final budget compromise passed by the General Assembly. But backers aren’t giving up on curtailing or ending the regulation that forces medical providers to get permission from the government to make major new investments. Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, successfully inserted a phased-in…
After more than three hours of debate, on Wednesday the state House passed the budget conference report for 2017-19 by an initial margin of 77-40, five votes more than needed to override a potential veto by Gov. Roy Cooper. The House is set on Thursday to give the compromise budget a…
Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican legislative leaders seemed to be discussing two different documents when they spoke to reporters this week about the General Assembly’s budget conference report. Cooper lashed out at legislative Republicans on Tuesday, calling their compromise $23 billion spending plan possibly “the most fiscally irresponsible budget I…
The $23 billion House and Senate budget compromise will include a 3.1 percent increase in spending in the 2017-18 budget year, which is higher than the two chambers agreed to several months ago when budget writing began. (Committee report here. Table of Contents for Senate Bill 527 here.
Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory says Roy Cooper, his Democratic successor, is repaying his trial lawyer campaign contributors by hiring them for expensive, politically motivated lawsuits against the GOP-led General Assembly. In a wide-ranging interview with Carolina Journal, McCrory also accused Cooper of massive firings of people hired during McCrory’s…
Sen. Andy Wells, R-Catawba, wants know how much state taxpayer money agencies are spending for unintended purposes. During debate Thursday on House Bill 403, Wells joined other senators in criticizing the nearly $1 billion in reserve funds held by the seven state-designated Local Management Entities/Managed Care Organizations. The LME/MCOs administer regional services for mental…
Patients deserve better access to both life-saving and life-preserving health-care treatments. Which means physicians, hospitals, and other health care facilities should be able to invest in their communities to address unmet patient demand for critical services such as kidney dialysis units, cost-effective surgery, neonatal intensive care units, nursing homes, and much, much, more.
A Senate panel passed legislation Thursday to accelerate mental health Medicaid reform and free up nearly $1 billion in frozen assets to provide more behavioral health services. Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, a co-chairman of the Senate Health Care Committee, presented an amended version of House Bill 403 that…
