NC House Introduces Medicaid Expansion Bill | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Brian Balfour.

    North Carolina House legislators yesterday introduced a bill to expand Medicaid in North Carolina. Three of the four primary sponsors are Republicans, and most House Republicans are expected to vote in favor. Some estimates say as many as 600,000 North Carolinians would be eligible to be added to Medicaid under expansion. The bill does not include Certificate of Need repeal or scope of practice reforms for nurses.

    There currently are 2.9 million North Caroilnians enrolled in Medicaid. Adding 600,000 would bring that to 3.5 million - the result would be roughly 1 in 3 North Carolinians enrolled in the government program.

    How the already overcrowded program will accomodate 600,000 more enrollees, or how a massive increment in citizens reliant on government for their health care is aligned with conservative values have both gone unexplained by the billl's supporters.

    Despite some more generous financial support offered by the $31 trillion-in-debt federal government, Medicaid expansion remains a bad idea for North Carolina.

    Since the beginning, the Locke Foundation has opposed Medicaid expansion, primarily because Increasing government dependency while expanding the size and scope of government programs is decidedly not a conservative value.

    For more on why Medicaid expansion is wrong for North Carolina, click here.