NC Policy Watch: “In an afternoon full of recitations of numbers and policy details on states’ experiences with Medicaid expansion, former Ohio governor John Kasich told North Carolina legislators that getting health insurance to more people was just the right thing to do.
“What I would say to the fine members of the legislature in North Carolina, to the people in North Carolina, there’s a lot of people that need a lot of help,” said Kasich, a Republican who championed Medicaid expansion in Ohio. That state expanded Medicaid in 2014, opening the government insurance program to low-income adults without dependent children.
“We have to open our hearts to those people,” Kasich said. “That doesn’t mean that when we do that that we put ourselves on the road to bankruptcy. It means that we have good management. And at the same time to able to expand this program.”
A legislative committee in North Carolina considering Medicaid expansion called on representatives from other states on Tuesday to talk about how they did it.
Expanding Medicaid would make about 600,000 people in North Carolina eligible for health insurance. Most low-income adults younger than 65 do not qualify for Medicaid. Those that make too little to qualify for subsidized health insurance available through Affordable Care Act marketplaces are said to fall into the health insurance gap.
Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has been trying for years to get Medicaid expansion in the state, with efforts that started even before he took office. Republicans in the legislature have rejected the idea since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2012 declared Medicaid expansion under the ACA is optional.
North Carolina is one of 12 states that has not expanded Medicaid.”