RALEIGH — As Republicans continue to portray DemocraticU.S. Sen. Kay Hagan as joined at the hip to an unpopular President Obama, and with congressional approval ratings cratering, the freshman senator’s best campaign strategy is to avoid national issues, political observers say. Some pundits consider Hagan among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats.
RALEIGH — Competing House and Senate plans for Medicaid reform will be addressed after the Nov. 4 general election, but another stab at coal ash legislation could happen before then. Political analysts say Democrats will use that unfinished business to try to fire up their base while Republicans point to a budget that increases teacher and state employee pay without raising taxes.
RALEIGH — Speculation is rampant that the General Assembly will pass a compromise $21.3 billion budget, then recess for several months while Medicaid discussions continue, though no officials have confirmed it. Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Thom Tillis indicated Tuesday, during a joint press conference called to announce a budget framework agreement, that Medicaid reform remains a major goal.
GREENSBORO — Guilford, and possibly Wake and Rockingham, will join Bladen, Mecklenburg, Richmond, and Brunswick counties with “local option sales tax referendums” on the Nov. 4 ballot. Each measure would hike the current tax rate by 0.25 percent. But a bill in the General Assembly could quash Mecklenburg’s referendum and put a dent in Wake’s ability to join a regional transit plan.
RALEIGH — Today’s Senate calendar includes a measure revamping Medicaid from the current fee-for-service model to one paying providers a set per-member-per month fee, moving Medicaid from the Department of Health and Human Services to a new department, and allowing hospital- and physician-led accountable care organizations to bid against insurance-based managed care organizations for regional contracts. The health plans would pick up expenses exceeding budgets.
RALEIGH — The proposed legislation would sever Medicaid and North Carolina Health Choice from the state Department of Health and Human Services. It would create a Department of Medical Benefits to administer those programs. As the General Assembly’s short session nears its close, it’s unclear whether the full Senate will adopt the plan or if so, whether the House would go along.
RALEIGH — A grass-roots group that backs school choice has asked the state Senate to shift $20 million it targeted for film incentives toward vouchers that would help low-income children attend private schools. Donald Bryson, deputy state director of Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina, said the move could resolve a lingering issue dividing the two chambers of the General Assembly.
RALEIGH — House and Senate budget negotiators cleared a major obstacle Wednesday by compromising on the Medicaid component of a $21 billion 2014-15 General Fund spending plan, but still face potentially prickly deliberations on Medicaid reform, teacher pay, and teacher tenure. Senators insisted that a Medicaid agreement would enable further talks.
RALEIGH — Senate budget negotiators will meet Wednesday morning in a public “conference committee” to start ironing out differences between three fiscal plans: one proposed by Gov. Pat McCrory and two passed by each legislative chamber. The questions are whether House conferees will take part, and whether the Senate will consider a trimmed-down, adjusted budget the House passed last week.
RALEIGH — As outlined in a June 23 memo from state budget director Art Pope to department heads and fiscal officers, each state department and agency would operate under the lower of the previously approved figures from the House and Senate for individual budget line items. Unlike the status quo, which would allow state government to operate at 2014-15 budget levels agreed to during last year’s budget debate, “reverse logrolling” would impose immediate cuts to agency and department budgets.
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