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As the coronavirus pandemic forces businesses to lay off workers, reports reveal as many as 27 million Americans have lost their employer-based health coverage. Experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians stand to benefit from expanding Medicaid. Without it, many fall in the coverage gap, leaving them without health insurance at a time when they need it the most. North Carolina’s Deputy Secretary of Medicaid Dave Richard warns of “a system that’s been stretched as far as it can go.”
Thanks to Thom Tillis, North Carolina is one of the 14 states left in the United States that has not expanded Medicaid, preventing hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians from gaining health coverage and robbing the state of a financial lifeline to rural hospitals who are struggling to stay open. The coronavirus pandemic puts Tillis’ decision to block Medicaid expansion back in the spotlight, as unemployment skyrockets and racial health disparities persist.
Tillis’ record of voting against the Affordable Care Act 13 times, doing nothing to stop the Republican lawsuit that threatens to dismantle the law, making clear that he supports anything that will take the ACA “off the table,” and even bragging about making it illegal to expand Medicaid may be the reason why now, during a pandemic and his uphill battle to re-election, “neither Tillis’ office in Washington nor his campaign office responded to repeated requests for an interview.”
Cal Cunningham joined ABC11’s Jonah Kaplan to discuss his priorities to expand access to health care for all North Carolinians.
“‘We know that an extended Medicaid can be catching people as they are being knocked down,’ Cal Cunningham, the Democrat candidate running for U.S. Senate, told ABC11. ‘If we don’t take these steps, the risk is that we create a downward spiral for our families and our economy. We need emergency steps today to make sure our families have unemployment assistance, small business has opportunity to keep people on the payroll, that we provide health coverage to people in the middle of a pandemic so that things don’t get worse.’”
Cal has also called on Congress to pass a Medicaid expansion incentive, to give states like North Carolina the 100 percent federal match regardless of when they expand.
ABC 11: Medicaid enrollment, costs growing as unemployment surges in North Carolina
By Jonah Kaplan – June 5, 2020