It's time for the GOP to end this desultory anti-Obamacare crusade
Thirteen years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, North Carolina is poised to become the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the law, thanks to the persistence of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and a growing recognition by Republican legislative leaders that their rural base has the most to gain. A breakthrough agreement will expand health-care coverage to an estimated 600,000 residents who make too much to qualify for the traditional Medicaid program, which predated the ACA expansion, but too little to qualify for subsidized private plans on the Obamacare marketplaces.
North Carolina offers a blueprint for breaking the logjam in the 10 remaining holdouts of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Rural hospitals in each of these places have struggled because so many of their patients lack health insurance, which means they don’t get reimbursed unless the state picks up the tab. But GOP lawmakers in these states have held out in a dogged, partisan protest of the ACA, for which their constituents pay.
In places such as the western mountains or the southeastern Sandhills region of the Tar Heel State, as many as 1 in 5 adults are uninsured. A December poll showed 78 percent of North Carolinians in favor of Medicaid expansion, including 64 percent of Republicans. The business community has been strongly supportive.
Nevertheless, this hard-won compromise took years to hash out. Senate leader Phil Berger (R), who was long one of the most outspoken critics of expansion, first expressed openness to a deal in the fall of 2021. Both the state House and Senate passed bills last year to expand Medicaid, but negotiations fell apart. After 10 months of mostly behind-the-scenes talks, and a marathon session one night last week, Mr. Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore (R) agreed to reform state laws that closely regulate North Carolina’s medical industry, loosening rules to ensure the supply of providers will keep up with demand as coverage increases.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/north-carolina-medicaid-obamacare-aca-republicans/
They should but most won't.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Plus tips, but those were minimal at best at Ihop.
And she was raising her deceased sister's 2 teenage boys.
Ridiculous!
