While North Carolina has refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, our state is enrolling uninsured people at a rate at least twice that of any other state that has refused to set up its own health exchange and refused to expand Medicaid.
In short, among states that are dragging their feet on the Affordable Care Act – no advertising campaigns, no speeches by the governor on how important it is for everyone to have access to health care, no Medicaid expansion that guarantees the lowest income workers coverage – North Carolina is by far leading the pack in private plan enrollment
So what’s going on? Our success starts with North Carolina’s excellent Medicaid managed-care program, Community Care of North Carolina. Even though Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative leaders declined the federal opportunity to expand Medicaid, N.C. Community Care has provided a natural framework to enroll uninsured people in private health plans.
Local doctors, hospitals, health centers, health departments, social service offices, legal service providers and other community leaders have worked together for a decade to help people access and use health care.
Because of this, North Carolina’s Medicaid program is already a huge success. Our state has had the lowest growth in Medicaid spending in the nation since 2007, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And a recent report from the N.C. General Assembly’s fiscal staff pointed out that North Carolina’s spending on Medicaid claims per person has declined overall by 11.6 percent since 2008 while national Medicaid spending per person has increased by six percent over the same period.
So, when the Affordable Care Act’s health exchange opened for business, there were already networks with proven records of success in helping people get health care.
Starting from the Community Care base doesn’t explain all our enrollment success, however. Excellent work by North Carolina’s legal aid program – which established an N.C. number (855-733-3711) so anyone could easily make an appointment with a counselor to talk over insurance options – an enormous investment in time and energy from local Community Health Centers around the state, a new office of an independent nonprofit focused on enrollment (Enroll America) and the work of many nonprofit and community groups all were indispensable.
Ironically, it is this very success driven by nonprofits and local leadership that points out the costs of North Carolina’s resistance to the Affordable Care Act and the dangers of the current debacle going on in the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
From information published in the Raleigh News & Observer