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The never-ending war on health care for struggling families
As we report below the US Supreme Court has decided to hear another legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act. You can read the details of the lawsuit in our earlier post, but some context is important. This new fight focuses on subsidies extended to individuals and families earning less than 400 percent of the […]
Deaths from the lack of Medicaid expansion
As the North Carolina NAACP holds a “Denial of Medicaid Funeral Procession” today, it’s worth considering some of the facts and data surrounding the impact of North Carolina’s ongoing refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act: The North Carolina Institute of Medicine’s 2009 Access to Care study begins with this statement: “The lack […]
North Carolina gets poor marks on women’s health
The Alliance for a Just Society along with Action NC released a report today titled “The Promise of Quality, Affordable Health Care for Women: Is North Carolina Delivering?” The answer, in a word, is no. Overall the report gives our state a C- on women’s health when looking at a range of measures from health outcomes […]
Where does Tillis stand on insurance requirements?
When I last posted about the Senate debate between Speaker Thom Tillis and Sen. Kay Hagan I had listened to the exchange on radio but I had not yet watched the video. Watching television coverage of the debate one could hardly miss that Tillis was, once again, wearing a blue lapel pin from the science and […]
Hagan v. Tillis: The health care debate within the debate
As expected health care played a major role in the first debate between Sen. Hagan and Speaker Tillis. Tillis took two major lines of attack against Sen. Hagan on health care: he chastised Hagan for saying that people could keep the insurance plan they like, and he criticized the policy of setting minimum standards for insurance plans. […]
Gov. McCrory could attract funds and friends by expanding health coverage
A new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Urban Institute shows the financial folly of rejecting Medicaid expansion. Currently 24 states are refusing federal funds to cover more of the uninsured, although that number is quickly dwindling as more governors and legislators get approval to implement state-specific expansion plans. If North Carolina does […]
Most North Carolinians in the Medicaid gap are working
This morning consumer advocacy group Families USA released a report along with the NC Community Health Center Association and the NC Justice Center showing that most people who stand to benefit from closing our state’s health insurance gap are working. Many of these folks are in low-wage service jobs. The report also examines the top occupations in […]
Obamacare doomed? Don’t bet on it
The world was supposed to end in 2012 according to various misinterpretations of Mayan culture. Then, when time kept ticking along into 2013 the doomsday preachers had to recalculate. Recently, there was news that a group called the Sword of God Brotherhood has changed humanity’s end date to January 1, 2017. History tells us two […]
New report details benefits of closing the health insurance coverage gap in North Carolina
The White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report today detailing the health and economic consequences of refusing to accept federal Medicaid money to expand insurance coverage in North Carolina. If the state accepted federal funds we could provide insurance coverage to 377,000 more people. This influx of federal money would also create jobs […]
Hobby Lobby wins and women’s health loses at Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court decided today that “closely held” corporations that object to contraceptives on religious grounds can deny this preventive coverage to female employees. There will be a great deal of constitutional banter on this opinion but, not being a constitutional scholar, I will make a few practical points. First, when HHS wrote this popular […]
In Medicaid “optional” service does not mean “unnecessary”
In a good conversation with Becki Gray yesterday on News 14 we discussed the different visions for Medicaid reform proposed in the respective budgets of the Governor, House, and Senate. In particular, Gray, who works for the John Locke Foundation, noted that the state has a “rich” benefits package in Medicaid because we offer many […]
Medicaid provision is recipe for Washington-style gridlock
The House budget includes a requirement that the position of Medicaid Director be subject to confirmation by the North Carolina General Assembly. Here’s some of the language: 4 APPOINTMENT AND CONFIRMATION OF MEDICAID DIRECTOR 5 SECTION 12H.36.(a) Effective July 1, 2014, and applying to Directors of the 6 Division of Medical Services appointed on or after […]