Patrick Sweeney: CCNC just the latest

Here comes another example of our General Assembly’s declining integrity. Fueled by insensitivity, irresponsibility and greed, it wants the feds to allow further North Carolina Medicaid system dismantling, because it needs “improving.” Despite the exemplary performance of 18-year-old Community Care of N.C., (“Community Care of N.C. touts Medicaid savings,” Sept. 3 news article) the GA wants it privatized.

So what if CCNC’s results have been 5 percent better than expectations. Patient treatment resulted in a 7 percent reduction in expensive ER visits. Hospital admissions fell 26 percent because patients were treated earlier and more thoroughly. Readmissions fell by 51 percent because hospitalized patients were treated until they were well enough to go home, not forced out as if the hospital were a restaurant turning over tables during lunchtime rush.

Forget about that! This is a new North Carolina where teachers escape the state. School-age children become commodities, not students, as charter “education” companies seek earnings over scholarship. An environmental agency’s name only mocks its intended purpose. Meanwhile, a mythical horde of fraudulent voters spends spare time searching out the wrong bathroom.

This is only another iteration of a sad, long-running play titled “The Managed Decline of the Once Great State of North Carolina.”

This story was originally published September 11, 2016 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Patrick Sweeney: CCNC just the latest."