Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, wants to throw a lifeline to as many as 20 rural hospitals that are headed toward insolvency. Berger and Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, whose districts have a history of struggling hospitals, are primary sponsors of Senate Bill 681…
State Treasurer Dale Folwell has reeled in a big fish. With a deadline just 13 days away, Community Care Physician Network, North Carolina’s largest network of independent physician clinics, announced Monday, June 17, it signed on to the State Health Plan’s…
State Treasurer Dale Folwell has clashed with Vidant Health in the past over state resources and State Health Plan reforms, but isn’t involved in the current battle between the hospital chain and the UNC Board of Governors over control of Vidant Medical Center. “I was as…
Fresh off N.C. Department of Insurance approval of cost-reducing reforms, Treasurer Dale Folwell is optimistic doctors and hospitals will join a new State Health Plan provider network. Contracts were set to go out late last week. The Insurance Department green light was the last regulatory hurdle…
Persistent questions about the constitutionality of legislation to stabilize the underfunded state retirement system have slowed the bill’s advance. On Tuesday, April 16, Senate Rules Committee Chairman Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, recommended sending Senate Bill 374 back to the Senate Pensions, Retirement, and…
Senate Republicans are again pushing State Treasurer Dale Folwell’s request to limit risk in the underfunded state pension plan by narrowing the number of retirement options. The Repeal Risky Retirement Payments Act, as Senate Bill 374 is titled, divides Republicans against Democrats, and pits the…
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…
State Treasurer Dale Folwell says if lawmakers shelve his State Health Plan reforms they will have nobody to blame but themselves. Folwell is locked in a heated battle with state hospitals, health systems, doctors, and legislative supporters of…
A plan by State Treasurer Dale Folwell to reform the nearly insolvent State Health Plan faces legislative pushback, prodded by hospitals and large medical providers. Folwell has no plan to abandon the reforms, which actuaries say would prevent the plan from going broke within four years.
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.
