Tag: medicaid

NC Senate GOP kicks pregnant women off Medicaid, ignores GOP Gov Martin’s legacy

May 30, 2013 at 11:19 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

Today in the News and Observer I detail yet another one of these crazy changes hidden deep in the GOP budget recently passed by the NC Senate. This one is a doozy—it kicks off pregnant women who currently get Medicaid and tells them to go buy private insurance. A half-hearted attempt at political cover is provided by saying that somehow (it’s unworkable) the state will pay part of the private premium if these lower income women qualify. However, under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid was supposed to be expanded, not cut, an expansion already rejected by the NC Senate. The latest cynical attempt to attack “Obamacare” just doesn’t work and it ignores the great bipartisan legacy of our state’s efforts to attack our awful infant mortality rate problem:

Back in 1989, shortly after news that North Carolina had the highest infant mortality rate of any state in the nation, Republican Gov. Jim Martin created a task force to seek solutions to this national embarrassment after he already had been pushing for changes to address the problem. Solutions championed by Martin included expanding Medicaid to many more pregnant women in 1987.

Crucial Conversation luncheon: Why Medicaid isn’t “broken”

May 29, 2013 at 2:40 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by

NC Policy Watch and the Health Advocacy Team at the North Carolina Justice Center are proud to announce a very special and timely Crucial Conversation luncheon,

The truth about North Carolina’s Medicaid program: Why it’s not “broken” or in need of privatization

featuring one of the nation’s most knowledgeable experts on health care policy: Ron Pollack, Executive Director of the Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization, Families USA.

Click here to register.

Background: Hardly a day goes by of late in which Gov. McCrory, House Speaker Tillis, Senate President Pro Tem Berger or some other conservative leader doesn’t allege that Medicaid, North Carolina’s health care program for poor people, is “broken.” In speech after speech, event after event, media appearance after media appearance, conservative state leaders repeat the same mantra: To rein in “out-of-control” spending, Medicaid must be fundamentally altered so that it is a program based on “choice,” “efficiency” and “competition.”

Why you should care: Though superficially appealing, there’s one big problem with the conservative talking points: They are demonstrably false. The truth of the matter is that Read More…

Chart: NC Medicaid has drastically reduced cost growth since 1990

May 22, 2013 at 11:44 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

Over the weekend, Governor Pat McCrory continued on his theme of “Medicaid is broken and costs are out of control” in a number of interviews. This reflects the talking points in this week’s NC Senate budget release that blame Medicaid for every budget woe in the state. It’s enormously disappointing that McCrory is not being challenged in these interviews with some basic facts about NC Medicaid that show far from being broken, it is actually a model program in reducing costs. In fact, why not ask him about this one easy chart? Over the last twenty years North Carolina has gone from an annual growth rate in Medicaid costs of 14% to today’s 3.5% growth rate (the lowest in the nation). North Carolina leads the nation in reducing Medicaid growth responsibly.

nc medicaid annual cost growth

Competing Medicaid op-eds: Specifics best platitudes

April 15, 2013 at 11:56 amCategory:Uncategorized

by

Over the weekend, the Wilmington StarNews published a pair of competing op-eds on the subject of Gov. McCrory’s Medicaid privatization plan – one by Adam Linker of the N.C. Health Access Coalition and another by HHS Secretary Aldona Vos.  

Unfortunately, the two pieces serve as a kind of microcosm of the first few months of the McCrory administration’s public performance. Read More…

NC Governor McCrory’s stated reasons for privatizing NC’s award-winning Medicaid program are simply false

April 10, 2013 at 3:46 pmCategory:Uncategorized

by

pinocchio statuteIn announcing his plan to privatize North Carolina’s award-winning Medicaid program, Community Care of NC, Governor Pat McCrory laid out five key reasons that in his view privatization is necessary.  The only problem?  None of them hold up under the even the most cursory scrutiny.  I’ll thoroughly debunk each in turn:

McCrory’s #1 claim why NC should privatize:  “[NC Medicaid Community Care] does not focus on measuring and improving overall health outcomes for recipients”

Community Care is proven to provide much better access to health care services that results in measurable improvements in health shown through changes in health service use.

For example, an exhaustive study last year of how children and others on NC Medicaid are using health services found that children with asthma enrolled in Community Care spent much less time admitted to the hospital and in the emergency room than children not enrolled.  At the same time these children with asthma spent more time in their family doctor’s office and getting medication to manage their condition.  This is the very definition of a better health outcome.

And Community Care doesn’t stop there.  CCNC has a detailed process for measuring quality of care delivered by providers statewide and encouraging better quality– the “Quality Measurement and Feedback” program.

McCrory’s #2 claim why NC should privatize:  “[NC Medicaid Community Care] lacks a culture of customer service and operates in silos, making it difficult for recipients to know where to go to receive the right care”

Governor McCrory might want to take a look at the actual Medicaid card sent to people on Medicaid when they sign up.   It includes the name, address and phone number of the Medicaid recipient’s family doctor or health practice printed right on the card.  You don’t get much easier direction as to who to call first when you get sick than that.

Read More…