North Raleigh Today

Now that North Carolina’s General Assembly has pushed any action on expanding Medicaid to 2023, those affected are already taking steps to try to convince the legislators to act next year rather than letting it slip through the cracks again.

Gov. Roy Cooper is among those pushing for action.

“Failure to expand Medicaid is costing lives and $521 million a month,” Cooper said on Twitter. “It’s time to get this done.” 

By failing to act on in during the work session that just ended is keeping more than half a million North Carolinians from getting better access to medical care.

With the legislative battle extending into 2023, interested entities such as the American Cancer Society are now having to use money for advertising campaigns that could otherwise be spent finding cures for cancer, WRAL said in an editorial report. 

“Cancer isn’t partisan, and neither is having access to affordable health care,” John Hoctor, managing government relations director at the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, said.

There is no reasonable excuse that another legislative session has come and gone without expanding Medicaid, the editorial said.

Some refer to the fact that legislative leaders have forced a ban on Medicaid expansion since 2014 as “a mean-spirited display of antipathy” toward former President Barack Obama.

Since the federal government agreed to assume almost all the cost, North Carolina has left more than $40 billion in federal funding in Washington since 2014. North Carolina is one of just 11 states yet to expand Medicaid. Federal taxes North Carolinians have paid, meanwhile, have gone to help pay for Medicaid expansion in Arkansas, Louisiana, Utah, Indiana and most recently, South Dakota.

The numbers paint a stark picture. In North Carolina, the holdout means 4,240 to 15,200 deaths of people who weren’t able to get lifesaving care; 110.458 women who haven’t been able to get breast cancer screenings; 236,500 diabetics who have gone without medication; and 118,000 jobs that would have been created because of the infusion of federal funds.

The editorial criticizes lawmakers for coming up with myriad reasons to not do the right thing and the political gamesmanship associated with a proposed Medicaid expansion deal. 

“It is a shameful legacy to have needlessly let thousands die and hundreds of thousands suffer over partisan pridefulness,” the editorial said as it called for elected state officials to move the legislation through quickly when the next session starts in January.

“Waiting until next year is astonishingly wasteful, irresponsible and cruel, costing us lives and billions of dollars,” Cooper spokesperson Mary Scott Winstead told the Associated Press earlier this year when the delay was made evident.