New COVID-19 health equity report calls for Medicaid expansion in North Carolina
A new equity task force formed by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper to examine health disparities among the state’s communities of color — made even more stark with the spread of COVID-19 — is calling for Medicaid expansion in its first report.
Cooper formed the Andrea Harris Social, Economic, Environmental and Health Equity Task Force in early June to address health disparities among Black and brown residents. He announced the task force via an executive order shortly after the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota and as protests over racism and racial injustice sprung up around the country and in North Carolina.
Executive Order 143 addresses how African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus with a goal of looking at systemic issues that cause the imbalance.
Twenty-two percent of coronavirus cases are among Black residents while 27% are among Hispanic residents, according to the latest weekly COVID-19 trend data from the N.C. Department of Heath and Human Services.
“The disparity is because people of color have historically had less access to healthcare, housing, economic opportunity and more,” Cooper said in June. “This virus is exploiting those inequalities, and it’s up to us to do something about it.”
Machelle Sanders, secretary of the state’s Department of Administration leads the task force and said the policy recommendations were developed with public input. More public input sessions will be held in the coming months.
“It is our goal to create economic opportunity, eliminate health disparities and achieve environmental justice for a better North Carolina,” Sanders said in a news release about the report.
In addition to Medicaid expansion, the task force’s top recommendations are:
▪ More options for patients to use tele-health services;
▪ More investments in rural hospitals and community health centers to offer quality health care, digital literacy training, vaccinations and vaccination awareness;
▪ Create a mandatory standard of collecting patient information, including race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation; and
▪ Support workforce development and partnerships with the state’s HBCUs and community colleges to create a medical school pipeline.
Sanders told The News & Observer this summer that the task force would include influential leaders in health, education, faith and business.
“We want to focus on the root cause of these disparities,” Sanders told The N&O. “We want to focus on the root cause of the outcomes that we are seeing, and we want to focus on the root cause of why the data tells us that it is no surprise that there’s a disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color.”
Medicaid expansion a priority
A majority of states have expanded Medicaid, and that has been a policy priority of the Cooper administration in his first term and remained so during his reelection campaign.
But it was also at the center of the 2019 state budget standoff between Cooper, a Democrat, and the Republican-led legislature, particularly in the Senate.
After the election, the same leadership remains in both branches of state government, and Cooper was reelected.
For North Carolina, expansion of Medicaid would extend coverage to about 500,000 residents who do not currently qualify for Medicaid because their income is too high, but also too low for affordable private health insurance.
The task force also looked at long-term disparities and separated its work into subcommittees focused on access to healthcare, economic opportunity and business development, educational opportunity, environmental justice and inclusion and patient engagement.
The report and policy recommendations can be found at ncadmin.nc.gov/ahtf. The task force will have a second a final report due June 1.
The task force is named for the former CEO of the North Carolina Minority Development Institute in Durham who died in May.
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