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It’s time for a plan to cover 500,000 North Carolinians
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled — again — that the structure of the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, it is time to move forward with making the law work better in our state. The first, and most important, step is accepting federal funds to extend the benefits of affordable health insurance coverage to 500,000 […]
Belhaven Mayor Adam O’Neal and friends are walking to DC to save rural health care
Last year Mayor Adam O’Neal from the tiny, scenic town of Belhaven, NC, made national headlines as he walked nearly 300 miles from Beaufort County to Washington, DC, to protest the closing of his rural hospital and to urge states to accept Medicaid expansion. On Monday, June 1, O’Neal left Belhaven to replicate last year’s […]
More local governments back Medicaid expansion
In 2013 the North Carolina General Assembly rejected new federal funds to expand health insurance coverage in the state, but that hasn’t stopped local governments from urging the Governor and legislators to change course. Counties such as Mecklenburg and Durham have passed Medicaid expansion resolutions as have cities like Greensboro and Winston-Salem. Even Sen. Phil Berger’s […]
States reap savings and increased revenues from Medicaid expansion
A new report from Manatt Health Solutions on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds that states that have tapped federal funds to expand Medicaid are seeing significant financial benefits. By the end of 2015 the savings and revenues across the eight states examined in the report are expected to exceed $1.8 billion. This is […]
Anti-same sex marriage “economist” to bash Medicaid expansion in NC
Out-of-state activist J. Scott Moody will be making the rounds on Monday in North Carolina to say that expanding Medicaid will hurt our economy. Moody is from a South Carolina outfit called State Budget Solutions and he travels the country speaking out against policies disfavored by conservatives. His schtick is releasing cut-and-paste reports showing the […]
HHS gives people who owe tax penalty a second chance to get insurance
Consumer organizations have asked the Obama Administration for months to give people who find out during tax filing season that they owe a penalty for not buying health insurance another chance to enroll. Today Health & Human Services announced that they will do just that. In meetings and public forums we have found that many people […]
Burying objections to Medicaid expansion under an “avalanche of facts”
Today in the Joint Appropriations Committee at the NC General Assembly there was a suggestion that closing the insurance coverage gap in states has proven much more expensive than first anticipated. Just after the conclusion of our legislative meeting Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear held a press conference addressing this very issue. In his statement to the media […]
Introducing NC Left Me Out: Putting a face on the Medicaid coverage gap
A group of coalition partners working in North Carolina to close the Medicaid coverage gap has launched a new website called NC Left Me Out to collect stories of people who make too much for Medicaid and too little for private insurance. As the website explains, the Affordable Care Act specifically allocated funds to provide […]
Health insurance for 1 million North Carolinians at risk in US Supreme Court case
We have written before about King v. Burwell, the case that will be heard before the US Supreme Court to determine whether or not health insurance subsidies can flow to states that refused to establish state-based marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act. As John Stewart has noted, justices would have to be more literal than […]
Work requirements a non-starter for Medicaid waiver
As noted below, Gov. McCrory met with President Obama to discuss flexibility in using Medicaid expansion money to implement a North Carolina specific program that will extend health insurance to more low-income residents. As we have also said, the federal government has shown a tremendous willingness to accommodate governors who request authority to design new […]
New study shows that state lost billions of dollars and thousands of jobs by refusing Medicaid expansion; Legislators can still change course.
A new report from Cone Health Foundation and Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust finds that North Carolina lost out on billions of dollars and thousands of jobs by refusing to close the Medicaid coverage gap in 2014 and 2015. If the state acts in 2016, however, we can recoup some lost ground by covering 500,000 […]
Get your health insurance TODAY
If you don’t have affordable health insurance through an employer then now is your chance to shop for a plan on the individual market. New options are now available and many people can get help paying premiums. In fact, in 2014 more than 90 percent of people who enrolled in an insurance plan through healthcare.gov […]