Medicaid expansion separates Forest and Cooper in campaign for governor
The coronavirus pandemic has put a spotlight on an issue that would be part of campaign season in North Carolina anyway: health care. And more specifically, Medicaid expansion.
Expanding Medicaid to as many as half a million more North Carolinians was at the center of the 2019 budget battle between Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the Republican-led state legislature, particularly the Senate. Cooper and other Democrats wanted Medicaid expansion like 39 other states. Republican leadership did not.
The Affordable Care Act allows North Carolina to expand Medicaid coverage to about 500,000 residents who do not currently qualify for Medicaid coverage because their income is too high, but too low for affordable private health insurance.
Cooper is running for his second term against Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest. Here’s where they stand on Medicaid expansion and the state of health care in North Carolina:
Cooper wants Medicaid expansion
Cooper said that if the legislature becomes majority Democratic after the Nov. 3 election, he wants to sign Medicaid expansion into law as soon as a few weeks into the new legislative session, which starts in January.
During the election year’s only gubernatorial debate on Oct. 14, Cooper said that “closing the health care coverage gap particularly in the middle of a pandemic, I believe is a moral imperative.”
Cooper said it is wrong to withhold the potential health care coverage that Medicaid expansion would provide. The federal government would cover most of the cost, and Cooper has proposed having hospitals and health plans pick up the rest.
“All we have to do is to say yes,” he said, “and Dan Forest and the Republican leadership continue to stop it.”
Cooper told reporters at a September news briefing about COVID-19 that even though it was part of last year’s budget fight and didn’t happen, he’ll continue to push for Medicaid expansion.
“This should be really easy, and so I think you have to look at this point in time as different from last year,” Cooper told reporters. “Yeah, we were having disputes over Medicaid expansion, but then a pandemic happened, and now a lot of people are hurting and now we’re fighting for every federal dollar we can get.”
Forest on health care
“Yes everybody needs health care. We know that,” Forest said during the debate. “You cannot survive in this world today without health care coverage.”
But Forest does not see expansion as the solution.
“We need to continue to drive down costs and we need to drive up quality,” Forest said this month. “Medicaid is not the way to do that. A one-size-fits all government program is not the way to do that.”
During the primary, Forest told The News & Observer in a candidate questionnaire that if he becomes governor, he would “focus on providing better access for patients by encouraging doctors to practice in our rural communities.”
Forest said he would also work with the General Assembly and the state treasurer “to ensure more price transparency so citizens know how much prescription drugs and vital health services cost. I’ll fight to get those left in the coverage gap created by the ACA on private insurance.”
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