Current:Home > StocksNorth Carolina’s governor visits rural areas to promote Medicaid expansion delayed by budget wait-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
North Carolina’s governor visits rural areas to promote Medicaid expansion delayed by budget wait
View Date:2024-12-23 19:51:50
YADKINVILLE, N.C. (AP) — With a Medicaid expansion kickoff likely delayed further in North Carolina as General Assembly budget negotiations drag on, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper wrapped up a week of rural travel Thursday to attempt to build pressure upon Republicans to hustle on an agreement.
Cooper met with elected officials and physicians in Martin, Richmond and Yadkin counties to highlight local health care challenges, which include shuttered hospitals, rampant drug abuse and high-quality jobs.
All of these and other needs could be addressed with several billion dollars in recurring federal funds statewide annually and a one-time $1.8 billion bonus once expansion can be implemented, according to Cooper.
The governor signed a law in March that would provide Medicaid to potentially 600,000 low-income adults who make too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid. But that law said it can’t happen until a state budget law is enacted. House and Senate leaders are still negotiating a two-year spending plan seven weeks after the current fiscal year began.
“It’s past time for Republican leaders to do their jobs, pass a budget and start Medicaid expansion now to give our rural areas resources to prevent hospital closures and combat the opioid crisis,” Cooper said in a news release summarizing his visit to Yadkin County on Thursday.
With lawmakers in Raleigh this week to vote on non-budget legislation, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger said the two chambers are getting closer to a budget agreement, but that it won’t be finalized and voted on until early or mid-September.
Kody Kinsley, the secretary of Cooper’s Department of Health and Human Services, announced last month that expansion would start Oct. 1 as long as his agency received formal authority by elected officials to move forward by Sept. 1. Otherwise, he said, it would have to wait until Dec. 1 or perhaps early 2024.
As the budget stalemate extended, Cooper has urged legislators unsuccessfully to decouple expansion authorization from the budget’s passage and approve it separately. After completing votes Wednesday, lawmakers may not hold more floor votes until early September.
Berger and Moore said they remain committed to getting expansion implemented. Berger mentioned this week that some budget negotiations center on how to spend the one-time bonus money the state would get from Washington for carrying out expansion.
While Moore said Thursday he was hopeful expansion could still start Oct. 1, Berger reiterated that missing the Sept. 1 deadline would appear to delay it.
Cooper’s travels took him Tuesday to Williamston, where he toured the grounds of Martin General Hospital, which closed two weeks ago, and later in the week to Yadkinville, where he saw the former Yadkin Valley Community Hospital, which closed in 2015.
Martin General closed its doors after its operators said it had generated financial losses of $30 million since 2016, including $13 million in 2022. Cooper was greeted in Williamston by hospital employees and other supporters who asked him for help keeping the hospital open. The closest emergency room is now 20 miles (32 kilometers) away.
North Carolina’s expansion law would result in higher reimbursement rates for these and other hospitals to keep them open and give an economic boost to the region, according to Cooper’s office.
Kinsley has said he expects 300,000 people who already receive family planning coverage through Medicaid will be automatically enrolled for full health care coverage once expansion begins.
And Cooper said it should also return coverage to about 9,000 people who each month are being taken off the rolls of traditional Medicaid now that eligibility reviews are required again by the federal government following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
veryGood! (916)
Related
- Giuliani’s lawyers after $148M defamation judgment seek to withdraw from his case
- Woman, 41, gives birth on sidewalk, drags baby by umbilical cord, Hawaii police say
- Ice Spice and everything nice: How the Grammys best new artist nominee broke the mold
- How To Tech: Why it’s important to turn on Apple’s new Stolen Device Protection
- GM recalling big pickups and SUVs because the rear wheels can lock up, increasing risk of a crash
- HP Enterprise discloses hack by suspected state-backed Russian hackers
- Israel vows to fight Hamas all the way to Gaza’s southern border. That’s fueling tension with Egypt
- Biden to host Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida at a state visit in April
- Forget the bathroom. When renovating a home, a good roof is a no-brainer, experts say.
- What is Jim Harbaugh's NFL record? Everything you need to know about Chargers new coach
Ranking
- Florida man’s US charges upgraded to killing his estranged wife in Spain
- Jill Biden invites Kate Cox, Texas woman who was denied emergency abortion, to be State of the Union guest
- Montana man convicted of killing eagles is sentenced to 3 years in prison for related gun violations
- Biden administration renews demand for Texas to allow Border Patrol to access a key park
- The Best Gifts for People Who Don’t Want Anything
- These 59 Juicy Celebrity Memoirs Will Help You Reach Your Reading Goal This Year
- Hong Kong’s top court restores activist’s conviction over banned vigil on Tiananmen crackdown
- Rauw Alejandro, Peso Pluma, Maluma headline Sueños 2024, Chicago's Latino music festival
Recommendation
-
Jerry Jones lashes out at question about sun's glare at AT&T Stadium after Cowboys' loss
-
Ohio bans gender-affirming care for minors, restricts transgender athletes over Gov. Mike DeWine's veto
-
Flight recorders from Russian plane crash that killed all 74 aboard are reportedly found
-
3-year-old dies after Georgia woman keeps her kids in freezing woods overnight, police say
-
ONA Community Introduce
-
'Griselda' cast, release date, where to watch Sofía Vergara star as Griselda Blanco in new series
-
Report on sex abuse in Germany’s Protestant Church documents at least 2,225 victims
-
Boeing faces quality control questions as its CEO appears on Capitol Hill