BREAKING: North Carolina’s GOP-controlled Legislature passes Medicaid expansion on the Affordable Care Act’s 13th anniversary. House’s final vote was 87-24. The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Roy Cooper — a longtime expansion proponent — for his signature.
— Megan Messerly (@meganmesserly) March 23, 2023
The expansion legislation will not go live until the state passes a budget. This is still an active linked negoatiation with substantial leverage on all sides, so it could get messy. However, it is very likely that North Carolina will be running Medicaid Expansion effective the end of this year or early in 2024.
Baud
Nice. Congrats to all involved.
WaterGirl
That is such great news!
Kind of surprising that the GOP-controlled legislature would pass this on the anniversary of the signing of ACA – is there any backstory for that?
Surely it wasn’t coincidence.
Old School
That will bring the number of holdouts down to ten. Maybe in another 13 years.
OzarkHillbilly
Here in Misery, Medicaid expansion has been part of the state Constitution since July 1, 2021. When that past I knew the ACA was here to stay. It’s only a matter of time before the last red state accepts the inevitable. And the money that comes with it.
smith
Between their rural hospitals closing due to lack of funds, and services discontinued because of abortion bans, the holdout states are looking at the prospect of no health services at all.
gene108
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Baud
@smith:
I feel owned.
Mike in NC
I read somewhere that the Republicans had loaded this legislation down with a few ‘poison pills’, but hopefully Gov. Cooper can get it done despite them.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: North Carolina Republicans probably got a lot of push from medical interests in their districts and statewide. And they know that resisting expansion is in general a loser politically.
I think that practical political question proved to be the clincher in Virginia. Ralph Northam and House of Delegates candidates made Medicaid expansion a central issue In 2017. Northam won easily, and Democrats picked up 14 Delegate seats (a coin flip in a tied district denied them a 15th which would have made a 50-50 tie in the House).
In the new General Assembly’s first session, 3 Republican Senators and 10 Republican Delegates helped push expansion through.
These Republicans faced some blowback. Two or three of the Delagates were primaried out, and then-Speaker Kirk Cox’s run for Governor fell flat in 2021 because he was considered a turncoat on this issue. One of the Senators retired, but Senators Vogel and Hanger easily turned back challenges in 2019.
Frankensteinbeck
Amazing what can happen when enough time has passed for Republicans to forget that a black man offered them this charity.
sab
@Geminid: In Ohio’s last election the Republicans won almost everything but it wasn’t the anti-government Trumpers. It was DeWine and what is left of the old guard. He supported medicaid expansion. DeWine facing his secomd primary challenge them again.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Good for North Carolina
Burnspbesq
@WaterGirl:
N.C. Republicans will pretty much do whatever Art Pope tells them to do.
Elizabelle
Excellent news. It’s been tragic to watch North Carolina’s downward trajectory, with the sharp right turn and lunatic legislature. (Art Pope, anybody?). They are so lucky to have Governor Roy Cooper.
Geminid
@sab: I think I read that a faction of Republican state Representatives joined Democrats in electing a less radical Republican as Speaker. I guess we’ll see if this makes a practical difference.
AM in NC
Yay! Finally! This is a BFD.
ETA – HaHa, just saw the title of the following post!
rikyrah
CLAP CLAP CLAP
It’s about time.
West of the Rockies
Today’s Republican Party is not far-removed from the Heaven’s Gate cult. They’re enraged, under-educated followers.
kindness
I’m with Charles Pierce on this one. Why is it so hard to get Republicans to take free money to help ‘their’ people? Well…we understand some of it. Republicans prefer that money get funneled through their friends in private businesses so they can take big cuts of the money stream. Grifters, all of them.
Mai Naem mobile
About time North Carolina! I wonder if Mississippi can be convinced if the Presley guy wins the governorship.
Arizona was the last state in the union to accept plain old Medicaid in 1982, signed in by Bruce Babbitt. 17 years after the law was passed. Hope the holdouts don’t take that long.
Anonymous At Work
@OzarkHillbilly: Didn’t the Missouri Lege decline to accept the money and/or pass dog-awful enacting legislation? I think South Dakota did something similar, a “The Voters didn’t really mean that and can’t make us pass a budget with expansion in it” Act?
rikyrah
@kindness:
because, some of it goes to help THOSE people
billcinsd
@Anonymous At Work: South Dakota has put in a bill to pay for our portion of the expansion. I am not sure where that sits although the Gov and the Lege have agreed a budget. I think it was marijuana decriminalization where the Lege got the state Supreme Court to say the referendum was not done correctly