WTVD – Patients and physicians call for expanded Medicaid coverage in NC

North Carolina is poised to make one of the biggest changes to state policy in a generation. Democrats have introduced a pair of bills that would make our state’s health insurance program, Medicaid, available to the very poor. And they’ll do so primarily at the expense of the federal government, who are already paying for this coverage in most other states. It’s time we catch up with the rest of the nation and expand Medicaid.

• More than 500,000 North Carolinians stand to benefit from expanding Medicaid. This means they would be able to go to the doctor when they are sick, treat illness before it becomes a crisis, and get back to work.
• The cost of this expansion would be borne almost completely by the federal government with no new taxes on families in North Carolina.
• More than $43 billion and 40,000 jobs would be added to the North Carolina economy if the state expands Medicaid.
• 30,000 veterans are uninsured in North Carolina. Expansion of Medicaid in Kentucky halved their number of uninsured veterans.
• People without health insurance still get sick. Often they wait until the situation is critical and rely on hospital emergency rooms, which will treat them even if they can’t pay. These hospitals then pass the cost of covering uninsured patients on to those who are insured.

From WTVD