Joe

 John

Medicaid Expansion

I support closing the health insurance coverage gap by expanding Medicaid without work reporting requirements or annual premiums and have found no definitive basis for rejecting expansion in the statements of opponents.  

Under expansion, health care would be provided to hundreds of thousands of North Carolina citizens currently without coverage.  NC taxpayers are already, through their federal tax dollars, paying for expansion in 38 states and the District of Columbia, which have decided to close the coverage gap.

A NC Institute of Medicine study projected that expansion would create 25,000 jobs in North Carolina in the first few years following expansion and 18,000 jobs thereafter.  Expansion would provide billions of dollars to NC hospitals, many of which, especially in our rural areas, are struggling to survive.  

As a legislator, I co-sponsored House Bill 5 , “Close the Medicaid Coverage Gap,” in 2019 and House Bill 1040, “Healthcare for Working North Carolinians,” in 2020, both of which sought to expand Medicaid in North Carolina, and expect to join in the filing of a similar bill as soon as the 2021-22 legislative session begins.