Rep. Donny Lambeth

Moravian cookies rise to power: NC lawmakers eye official state cookie and star

As for passing the House and Senate floor this session, time will tell if the stars align and how the cookie crumbles.

Brianna Kraemer

Bill that would let BCBSNC reorganize clears the House

H.B. 346, Reorganization & Economic Development Act, sailed through three House committees, including Health, Insurance, and Rules, this week before passing 86-26 in the House Thursday and now heads to the Senate.

House bill proposing changes to BCBSNC advances to Rules

A bipartisan House bill that would allow Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina to reorganize and create a holding company that could transfer billions of surplus policyholder money is on its way to the House Rules Committee after passing the House Insurance Committee Wednesday.

House alternative to Senate’s Medicaid bill discussed in committee Thursday

state health agency to come up with a Medicaid Modernization Plan, to expanding Medicaid with work requirements for the expansion enrollees. The bill would also require that the plan earmarks for behavioral health and substance abuse, and expansion of healthcare to rural areas.

Update: Cooper signs first budget as governor

Updated with news of the governor signing the budget, Senate Bill 105, 2021 Appropriations Act, into law. Gov. Roy Cooper on Thursday, Nov. 18, signed the $25.9 billion budget plan into law. It’s the first budget from the General Assembly that Cooper has signed since taking office in 2017. Both chambers passed the budget by...

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House health panel considers temporary Medicaid expansion to cover COVID-19

Republican lawmakers are considering temporarily expanding Medicaid to cover uninsured residents’ coronavirus testing and treatment, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said during a meeting of the House Committee on COVID-19 Health Care Working Group. Medicaid expansion derailed last year’s budget, after Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the $24 billion 2019-20 spending plan last summer. The Republican-led...

Removal of work requirements leave Republicans little room to reform Medicaid

The possibility of a Republican version of Medicaid expansion has died in North Carolina. Republicans in the House had flirted with a version of Medicaid expansion that would extend coverage only to low-income working adults. But now that a federal appeals court has struck down work requirements on Arkansas’ Medicaid program, Medicaid work requirements across...

House committee passes GOP version of Medicaid expansion

The Republican version of Medicaid expansion will move to the House floor. NC Healthcare for Working Families passed the House Health Committee on Wednesday, Sept. 18. For more than an hour, the debate revolved around the two pillars of the GOP version of Medicaid expansion — work requirements and premium co-pays. Predictably, Democrats tried to...

Budget veto override may put Medicaid expansion back in play

The budget passed the N.C. House in a controversial veto override, but the debate over Medicaid expansion is far from over. House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, promised a vote on Medicaid expansion after a veto override passed. He said members will debate the Republican version of the plan, House Bill 655, this week. The Senate,...

Julie Havlak, Lindsay Marchello

Temporary spending measure eases, but doesn’t end, stalemate over budget

The state House overwhelmingly passed a bill temporarily ending a stalemate over the budget. But even after House Bill 111 passed Wednesday, July 10, the General Assembly’s political game of chicken with Gov. Roy Cooper continues. At the center of the fight is Medicaid expansion. The Senate must agree to the measure. And Cooper must...