North Charlotte Today

Groups that support Medicaid expansion have kicked off advertising campaigns as they try to put pressure on North Carolina legislators to pass the bill early next year after they refused to consider it during their end-of-year work session.

More than half a million North Carolinians have been kept from getting better access to medical care because of the delay.

“Failure to expand Medicaid is costing lives and $521 million a month,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a tweet. “It’s time to get this done.” 

After lawmakers said they would revisit the matter in 2023, agencies such as the American Cancer Society almost immediately shifted into overdrive to start their advertising campaigns. The ad blitz, though, requires the group to use money that could have been spent on cancer research, WRAL said in an editorial report.

“Cancer isn’t partisan, and neither is having access to affordable health care,” John Hoctor, managing government relations director at the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, said in the editorial. 

The editorial criticized the delay, saying there is no excuse that justifies leaving people in limbo any longer. 

The editorial said legislative leaders have forced a ban on Medicaid expansion since 2014, calling their response nothing more than a “mean-spirited display of antipathy” toward former President Barack Obama. 

North Carolina is one of 11 states that have yet to expand Medicaid. The General Assembly’s years of inaction means the state has missed out on about $40 billion it could have received in federal funding since 2014. North Carolinians’ tax withholding, in the meantime, has helped subsidize Medicaid expansion in Arkansas, Louisiana, Utah, Indiana and most recently, South Dakota.

Advocates blame the General Assembly for deaths and job losses. They cite between 4,240 and 15,200 deaths of people who weren’t able to get lifesaving care. Additionally, 110.458 women have missed mammograms, and 236,500 diabetics have gone without medication. Had the state expanded Medicaid earlier, it could have created 118,000 jobs, backers say.

The editorial says lawmakers need to stop coming up with excuses for failing to reach a compromise and calls on them to do the right thing. 

“It is a shameful legacy to have needlessly let thousands die and hundreds of thousands suffer over partisan pridefulness,” the editorial said. It added that lawmakers should make the legislation a priority at the start of the 2023 session in January and pass it this time. 

When legislators first said they were tabling it, proponents reacted with dismay.

“Waiting until next year is astonishingly wasteful, irresponsible and cruel, costing us lives and billions of dollars,” Cooper spokesperson Mary Scott Winstead told the Associated Press earlier this year when the delay was made evident.