(TheConservativeTimes.org) – The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2014 and was an expansion of Medicaid that North Carolina, and 9 other states, denied participation in.
North Carolina just recently adopted the Medicaid expansion that is a result of the Affordable Care Act, and it will provide 600,000 adults in North Carolina with medical benefits. They are the most recent state to adopt the Medicaid expansion; we have seen Alabama and South Carolina express an interest in adopting the expansion as well.
North Carolina is the 40th state to adopt the Medicaid expansion, although the expansion itself was proposed in March 2023 with many officials backing it.
“Medicaid expansion is not going anywhere. So why should we turn down the federal tax money that we’ve already paid in Washington? Why should we prevent North Carolinians from benefiting from that?” the state’s governor, Roy Cooper, said.
The guidelines qualify 19 to 64-year-olds who earn up to 138% of the federal poverty line. Single people who earn $20,000 annually or below or families of three who earn $34,000 annually can qualify for Medicaid and benefits without paying money out of pocket.
Over 10 million North Carolinians are uninsured and this Medicaid expansion will cover about 5.6% of them.
Roy Cooper has been advocating for Medicaid expansions since 2017, but with North Carolina being a split state, half of the state leaders are Republican and half Democrat, Cooper being a Democrat, it took time to come to an agreement.
The biggest holdback on the Medicaid expansion is the Conservatives who were in opposition to it due to concerns of the government cutting its funding, as it’s mostly government-funded. In 2022, the government offered an incentive of a $1.8 billion bonus over a two-year period for any of the remaining states to adopt the Medicaid expansion.
With this being said, there is skepticism over whether the remainder of the states, which are mainly Republican-led, will accept the Medicaid expansion as well.
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