Expanding Medicaid Can Actually Cut State-Funded Spending | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    New federal laws mean North Carolina taxpayers will save $500 million by expanding Medicaid. Is there a reason to be against that?

    Expanding access to health care to more than a half-million North Carolinians is the right thing to do. Not having to spend a half-billion dollars in state funds to do it makes it even more urgent.

    It is because of some key incentives provided in federal COVID-19 relief legislation, North Carolina is able to spend LESS and make health care available to MORE people.

    While the federal government, since the Great Recession, has offered to pay 90% of the costs of expanding Medicaid, that deal was sweetened earlier this year with a new law that increases federal support to the state's current Medicaid program. Now, the federal government picks up 67.3% of the state's $16.8 billion Medicaid program. Expand Medicaid, and that federal share increases to 72.3%. As a result, the state's costs get reduced by $900 million.

    Even with added spending of about $400 million needed for Medicaid expansion (which the state's hospitals and other healthcare providers have offered to help shoulder) North Carolina would still be ahead of the game by as much as $500 million.

    This federal law, passed by Republicans and Democrats in Congress, is a real deal for North Carolina taxpayers.

    Gaining half-a-billion dollars — even amid the budget surpluses the state now enjoys — is significant. It offers the opportunity to invest in other critical needs that have for too long gone unmet — particularly complying with the state's constitutional guarantee to provide every child in the state with access to a quality education.

    Imagine, providing health care to tens of thousands of hard-working North Carolinians and saving state taxpayers' millions in the process!

    No gimmicks, no gotcha.

    Read the full article HERE.

• Contact: Ford Porter
•     govpress@nc.gov