Berger: Medicaid expansion worth it for a budget, but legislature still 'very far apart' with governor

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger also said legislative negotiators remain "very, very far apart" on a final budget agreement with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, raising the prospect that the General Assembly may soon vote on its own budget proposal and send it to the governor to sign into law or veto. The past few years, that process ended in a veto, derailing teacher raises and other spending priorities, including construction projects in lawmaker districts around the state.

“We’ve had good dialogue with the governor," Berger, R-Rockingham, told reporters after a Tuesday evening Senate session. "What I am, at this point, concerned about is the interplay between how far apart we are and the fact that it is now [Nov. 2], and I’m starting to get some rumblings from members in both chambers about 'We just need to do something.'"

On Medicaid expansion, Berger said he has "indicated that I thought that was something that would be appropriate for us to move forward with," which may be his strongest public endorsement of a plan to expand taxpayer-funded health insurance for the working poor in North Carolina, as all but 12 states have done.

Berger has said he still thinks expansion is bad policy, but a new billion-dollar-plus federal enticement to states that haven't yet expanded the program impacts the decision, as does a desire to get Cooper's sign-off on tax cuts that likely won't become law without the governor's consent.

Berger said that, "in the context of getting a budget this year," and particularly a budget that includes other GOP priorities, "crafting Medicaid expansion on top of that was, in my view, a trade that was worth considering.”

House Republicans, though, have thus far rejected the idea.

Poll: GOP voters back Medicaid expansion in NC, especially when they learn more about who benefits, who doesn't

"I think there are other folks who would be wiling to do (expansion), but we don’t have the kind of consensus between the House and the Senate for that to be the position of the House and the Senate," he said. "So, I support the position that we have jointly come to with the House, which is that Medicaid expansion is not something that would be in the final package.”

That's one of several impasses right now with the governor, Berger said.

“We’re apart on that issue," he said. "We’re apart on some spending levels. We’re apart on the tax package, and those are things that I felt like … we continue to be not close enough to say that the gap is being eliminated.”

Budget negotiations have gone on for weeks in secret between Berger, Moore and Cooper, despite WRAL News and other media outlets filing open records requests for proposals passing back and forth between the two branches of government. Berger said Tuesday that Cooper's most recent proposal presented lawmakers with two alternatives, but "neither of those were things that we could say yes to.”

“And in both instances, we continue to be very, very far apart," he said.