Burlington Reporter

Since North Carolina’s General Assembly put off any action on expanding Medicaid to 2023, those pushing for passage are already taking steps to try to press the legislators to act next year rather than letting it slip through the cracks again.

“Failure to expand Medicaid is costing lives and $521 million a month,” Gov. Roy Cooper said on Twitter. “t’s time to get this done.”

Failure to expand Medicaid is keeping more than half a million North Carolinians from getting better access to medical care.

With the legislative battle extending into 2023, entities such as the American Cancer Society are now spending money on advertising campaigns that could otherwise be spent finding cures for cancer, 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.

The editorial writers agreed, saying there is no reasonable excuse that another legislative session has come and gone without expanding Medicaid.

It called the fact that legislative leaders have forced a ban on Medicaid expansion since 2014 nothing more than a “mean-spirited display of antipathy” toward former President Barack Obama.

North Carolina remains one of just 11 states yet to expand Medicaid. With the federal government agreeing to assume almost all the cost, which means the state has left more than $40 billion in federal funding in Washington since 2014. Federal taxes North Carolinians have paid, meanwhile, have gone to help pay for Medicaid expansion in Arkansas, Louisiana, Utah, Indiana and most recently, South Dakota.

The North Carolina holdout has translated to between 4,240 and 15,200 deaths of people who weren’t able to get lifesaving care; 110.458 women who haven’t been able to get mammograms; 236,500 diabetics who have gone without medication; and 118,000 jobs that would have been created with the infusion of federal funds.

The editorial criticizes lawmakers for coming up with excuses for delaying a vote on the bill, saying no reason justifies not doing 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 as it called for elected state officials to move the legislation through quickly when the General Assembly reconvenes in January.

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