CBC Editorial: Wednesday, March 10, 2021; Editorial #8644
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.
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There are no good reasons for North Carolina not to expand Medicaid coverage to as many as 650,000 North Carolinians who now lack affordable access to health care.
It remains irrational that the General Assembly continues the ban on such expansion – particularly in the midst of the worst health pandemic the state and nation has seen in a century. How many of the 11,552 heart-breaking COVID-19 deaths might have been avoided?
North Carolina’s eight-year failure to expand Medicaid has cost the state about $15 billion in lost federal funds. That is money that North Carolina taxpayers are not getting brought back into the state that would have provided nearly 84,000 annual mammograms, helped support struggling rural hospitals and created more than 100,000 jobs.
Other states that have too-long resisted Medicaid expansion now appear to be getting on board – including Wyoming, where expansion passed out of that state legislature’s all Republican Senate health committee.
The federal COVID-19 relief legislation that appears to be headed to the president offers North Carolina between $1.7 billion and $2.4 billion in ADDITIONAL federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) funds over two years – that would be on top of the cost of covering Medicaid expansion. The federal government covers 90% of those costs. The additional funding in this latest legislation would be on top of the additional 6.2% increase in the federal contribution to Medicaid costs the state already gets through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act payable until the health emergency declaration concludes.
Even without the additional federal funds, North Carolina taxpayers wouldn’t be footing the bill for the difference in federal funds. The state’s hospitals have promised that they’d cover the additional costs of the expansion.
North Carolinians support Medicaid and they support its expansion. A statewide poll last year found that 60% view Medicaid favorably – including 51% of Republicans. Also, 75% back expanding Medicaid including 64% of Republicans.
The legislative leadership has yet to offer any good, sensible reason for not expanding Medicaid. That’s is because their opposition is rooted in reflexive partisan opposition to former President Barack Obama and his policy objectives.
For a legislature that in four days can introduce and pass a $1.6 billion pandemic relief bill, it shouldn’t need much time after eight years of stonewalling to rescind the ban on Medicaid expansion and put the federal funds to work.
The ink from the president’s signature on the federal COVID-19 relief bill shouldn’t be dry before the legislature approves Medicaid expansion for all North Carolinians.
BY THE NUMBERS: COST OF DENYING HEALTH INSURANCE IN N.C.
| 2014-2020 | JAN.-FEB. 2021 | TOTAL | |
| Diabetics Without Medication* | 173,324 | 4,508 | 177,832 |
| Annual Mammograms Missed* | 84,345 | 2,008 | 84,354 |
| Deaths* | 10,416 to 3,179 | 310 to 76 | 10,726 to 3,255 |
| Federal Funds Lost** | $14.8 billion | $242.4 million | $15.04 billion |
| Jobs Not Created** | 100,004 | 2,346 | 102,350 |
*Opting Out Of Medicaid Expansion: The Health and Financial Impacts, Health Affairs Blog
** The Economic and Employment Costs of Not Expanding Medicaid in N.C., Center for Health Policy Research, The George Washington University, Dec. 2014
NOTE: This editorial was updated with additional information about the COVID-19 relief bill, which Congress sent to President Biden on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.