About 300,000 people in North Carolina are on track to lose their government health insurance by the middle of next year. That estimate comes from the state Department for Health and Human Services, which is preparing plans to have Medicaid recipients’ family, health, and income information checked to make sure they are eligible for the insurance plan.
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medicaid
medicaid
The North Carolina legislative session begins Wednesday with a more conservative House and Senate and an environment in which GOP leaders will have an easier time pushing state laws and policies further to the right. Republicans gained seats in both the House and Senate in the November election. The GOP won a veto-proof majority in the Senate and is one vote shy of a veto-proof majority in the House, making it much more likely that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes can be overturned.
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This year in North Carolina was notable for something that didn’t happen – Medicaid expansion. Republican legislative leaders had largely dismissed the idea of expanding Medicaid until this year. Then Senate Leader Phil Berger, once a staunch and vocal opponent, said he’d changed his mind. After that blockbuster announcement, a Medicaid expansion bill passed the Senate, but soon thereafter, momentum slowed and the measure stalled.
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Over 3.2 million North Carolinians are poor or near poor, and many more experience economic instability and challenges over time. We’ve described some of these communities and the hurdles they face, individually and collectively, in our prior research. With this report, we examine the ways that women in North Carolina are caught in the crosshairs of irreconcilable social and economic demands.
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Gorgi Talevski did not live long enough to see his case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this month. A Macedonian-born resident of Indiana, Talevski operated a crane for three decades, raised a family and loved to dance before his dementia deepened, and he died last year. But the court’s decision, expected in spring, could have profound effects for tens of millions of beneficiaries of federal safety net programs, including those that provide health care, housing, education services and heating aid.
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For nearly a decade, North Carolina has forgone billions of federal dollars, prevented the creation of thousands of good jobs, caused multiple rural hospitals to close, and most disturbingly, condemned thousands of uninsured people to an early death by refusing to follow the lead of 38 other states in expanding Medicaid. As scores of experts, advocates, public officials and average North Carolinians have repeatedly attested and evidenced...
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Sometimes, when discussing important topics of public policy, it’s useful to dispense with all the talk of data and budgets and legal fine print and get down to what really matters: the impact on human beings. To his great credit, that’s what the former governor of Ohio, Republican John Kasich, did recently when he testified before a North Carolina legislative committee.
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In the state budget passed last fall, North Carolina lawmakers said they included raises for workers who provide direct care for the elderly or people with disabilities who live at home. The budget says that the rate increase is to “assist” in getting workers to $15 an hour. As it turns out those workers won’t get enough punch out of the budget provision to hit that $15 hourly minimum any time soon.
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While state leaders idle, thousands remain stuck on waiting list for decades A few weeks ago, I felt devastated when I read about the death of Ruby Loftin. Ruby was a beloved community member, sister, and daughter who died at age 64 after waiting in line (unsuccessfully) for more than 19 years to receive services...
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Special provisions target executive branch powers of Democratic officials Budget-writing season started with talk of hoped for cooperation and budget that would gain significant bipartisan support. That’s all soured in the early stages of budget debates, with Senate Democrats questioning a Republican-written budget that’s pumped full of special provisions that would limit executive branch powers.
...Plaintiffs claim they were not given their medicines, staff ignored calls for assistance A new class-action lawsuit brought against the Citadel Salisbury nursing home claims that chronic understaffing endangered the health and safety of its residents. The Citadel Salisbury was the site of the largest COVID-19 outbreak in a North Carolina congregant care facility early in the pandemic.
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In HB 1105, General Assembly leadership acknowledges that North Carolina families and communities face enormous hardships, but makes only token gestures to help people survive the COVID-19 pandemic
North Carolina can and should allocate the remaining federal COVID-19 relief funds to meet the pre-existing needs that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. ...