A group of House Republicans is taking another whack at what they call an alternative to Medicaid expansion so uninsured North Carolina residents can obtain health coverage. State Reps. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth; Josh Dobson, R-McDowell; Greg Murphy, R-Pitt; and Donna McDowell White, R-Johnston, held a news…
The state House passed a bill Wednesday, April 3, limiting State Treasurer Dale Folwell’s plans to make the State Health Plan more solvent. But the bill may not get a hearing in the Senate, letting Folwell move forward. House Bill 184 would block…
Top-ranking senators have introduced an omnibus health-care bill that would add severely disabled people to the Medicaid rolls and abolish restrictive certificate of need laws. Sens. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, and Dan Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, discussed Senate Bill 361, The Health Care Expansion Act of 2019,…
If Medicaid expansion forces taxpayers to pick up the tab for a service that was either previously paid for some other way or not consumed in the first place, there is no reduction in the cost of care.
The state treasurer and the N.C. Healthcare Association can’t reach consensus over how to pay for health insurance for state employees. The governor and some legislative leaders are advocating Medicaid expansion to cover an additional 600,000 people, which would cost the state roughly $600 million the first two years. The…
Reports of Medicaid expansion’s death in this legislative session might be greatly exaggerated. At least that’s the view of Gerry Cohen, former special counsel to the General Assembly, who thinks a possible procedural faux pas by freshman Sen. Kirk deViere, D-Cumberland, wasn’t a fatal flub.
North Carolina has already been evading its balanced-budget rule for decades by promising pension and retiree-health benefits to public employees without setting aside enough money every year to cover the cost.
Gov. Roy Cooper proposed a $25.2 billion General Fund budget for 2019-20 that would increase spending by more than $1.3 billion over the current fiscal year. He recommends spending $25.9 billion in the second year of the budget cycle. “We have…
The governor’s behind it, and state Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen is for it. Some freshmen legislators have made it a priority, some leaders in the N.C. House think it’s a good idea, and 32 states have implemented a version of it. But does Medicaid expansion…
No one knows for sure, really, when the current session of the N.C. legislature will end. But Lee Lilley, Gov. Roy Cooper’s director of legislative affairs, did offer this: “The session ends when we get Medicaid expansion.” Lilley took the question during the…
