Tag: medicaid

Insurance Commish explains folly of G.A.’s refusal to implement Obamacare

February 13, 2013 at 7:30 amCategory:Uncategorized

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Wayne GoodwinAnother public servant  who actually knows what he is talking about has weighed in on the absurdity of the legislation advanced by Governor McCrory and conservative lawmakers to try to block the important reforms and expanded coverage made possible by the Affordable Care Act. North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin issued the following statement after yesterday’s action by the House Health and Human Services Committee:

“I believe that North Carolinians know what’s best for North Carolina. State-based regulation best protects our consumers and promotes a healthy insurance marketplace. At the earlier direction of the General Assembly, the Department of Insurance and the Department of Health and Human Services have laid the necessary groundwork to implement a state-based health insurance exchange and other provisions of the federal health care law. I am disappointed that state leaders now want to cede more control of our health insurance market to the federal government. Read More…

Note to NC Officials: You can’t fix no-Obamacare bill so NC can get Obamacare money

February 8, 2013 at 4:13 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Health careIt would seem like a no-brainer.  The NC Senate passed and the NC House is expected to act shortly on a bill that would reject expanding Medicaid to 500,000 North Carolinians under the Affordable Care Act.  If that wasn’t enough, the bill would also reject the establishment of a state-federal partnership health exchange under Obamacare where people can buy health plans with tax credits to make coverage more affordable.  When NC was on track to develop a state/federal partnership health exchange the state received $74 million in Affordable Care Act money two months ago to update our computer systems and establish the exchange.  The no-Obamacare bill would force NC to return this money.

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McCrory’s “blood from a turnip” Medicaid demands

February 4, 2013 at 1:57 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Adam Searing has an important op-ed today over on the main Policy Watch site about the bogus attacks leveled against the state Medicaid program last week by Governor McCrory, HHS Secretary Aldona Wos and State Auditor Beth Wood.

Critics of North Carolina’s Medicaid program – the publicly-funded health insurance program for adults and children of low income – made some headlines in recent days by touting a new state audit that supposedly showed a large and previously unreported budget deficit. The critics, who included Governor McCrory and his State Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos, claimed that Medicaid had gone $375 over budget with state dollars and more than $1 billion over budget when federal dollars are included.

At the Governor’s news conference announcing the audit, DHHS Secretary Wos, lectured the Medicaid section of her agency: “Cost overruns will not be tolerated and will not be acceptable …There’s a budget for a reason.”

Conservatives are also using this audit as a reason for the state not to expand the Medicaid program to cover a half-million uninsured people as made possible by Obamacare (even though the expansion would be financed almost completely by the federal government).

There’s just one problem with McCrory and Wos’ conclusion: It’s bogus.

Read the entire column by clicking here.

NC Medicaid: Lowest annual spending growth in United States

February 1, 2013 at 2:12 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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There was criticism of NC’s innovative Community Care of NC program and the NC Medicaid program as a whole in yesterday’s audit of Medicaid being trumpeted by the McCrory Administration.  Let’s take a broader look at the facts.  For the period 2007-10 (the latest year annual stats are available) North Carolina’s annual spending growth in Medicaid was 3.5% – almost half the national average and the lowest rate of spending growth of any Medicaid program in the United States.  A “broken” program?  No.

Problems identified by Medicaid audit largely result of NC Republican’s own budget

February 1, 2013 at 10:14 amCategory:Uncategorized

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Today’s headlines highlight a audit of the state Medicaid program that shows an over $1 billion shortfall.  ”Shocked, shocked, I tell you!” are Republican Governor Pat McCrory and DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos that the Medicaid agency did not meet its budget:

Dr. Aldona Wos, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said at the news conference that the agency will change the way it operates. “Cost overruns will not be tolerated and will not be acceptable,” she said. “There’s a budget for a reason.”

But the major finding in the audit, the one that has gotten all the headlines, that NC’s Medicaid program wasn’t able to meet the budget set for it by the Republican majority in the General Assembly (and passed over former Democratic Governor Perdue’s veto) shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.  As former DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler said on August 4, 2011:

“It’s just really going to be next to impossible to achieve this budget, and I’m not sure where the legislature will go with that,” Cansler said. “The fact that this budget plays into next year (means next year) is going to be a difficult budget year as well.”

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