In one of his first acts, Gov. Roy Cooper began the process of applying for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, an expansion that could provide coverage to 500,000 people, help local hospitals especially rural ones, create thousands of jobs and bring in $4 billion in federal funding.
Across the country 32 governors have helped their state’s residents by making Medicaid available, governors including Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence for Indiana, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
But those 500,000 Tar Heels will probably go without health care, small hospitals will continue to struggle and federal tax dollars from all of North Carolina will flow to those 32 states. The status quo will obtain because two men who have been fighting an ideological battle against President Barack Obama filed an appeal Saturday and U.S. District Court Judge Louise Wood Flanagan granted their motion the same day, halting all progress on Cooper’s application for at least two weeks. By then, of course, the Trump presidency will be underway.
The two men, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, say expanding Medicaid violates the U.S. Constitution. It is also specifically prohibited by a 2013 state law, a law that may be unconstitutional though it has not been tested.
Their actions are another reminder that they do not care for the welfare and well being of the state and its residents.
3 Responses
Name one incident of any person in N.C. ( not only citizens but also visitors, immigrants legal or illegal), being denied health care. I’ll answer my own question. Not one in at least past 20 years. The legal liability of denying healthcare is enormous. As long as the political mumbo jumbo, which is exactly that and not compassionate to help people, is on “health insurance” N.C. residents will be harmed. Hopefully if the Medicaid funds from the federal govt. can be granted, and not a plethora of federal rules occurs then we will have better health care, at more locations with many more health care options to actually help, not harm for sake of convenient political philosophy. The poster child for the acceptance of federal funds is Oregon’s medicaid program and the ensuing rules and mandates attached have really harmed many of the Oregonians due to lack of funds for essential medications that were being covered prior to acceptance. With the rules, manipulated by pharmaceutical interests and lobbying for ACA, practically bankrupted the Oregon medicaid system even with the federal funds.
It has been sad that because of the refusal to expand Medicaid NC has lost huge amounts of Federal money and some of our citizens could not get the help they needed. It is certainly no constitutional violation and once again our leaders have, in their stubborness, given other states advantages that NC did not receive.
The last sentence is an absolute joke. These two men have done more for the state of NC than the last 10 general assemblies combined.