‘A monumental step.’ Cooper and Biden praise Republican Medicaid expansion agreement
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Medicaid expansion in North Carolina
The House and Senate have agreed to pass Medicaid expansion, reaching a breakthrough after years of debate. North Carolina is one of just 11 states that has not adopted Medicaid expansion under the federal Affordable Care Act.
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North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called a new Medicaid expansion agreement, years in the making, between House and Senate Republicans “a monumental step.”
“An agreement by legislative leaders to expand Medicaid in North Carolina is a monumental step that will save lives and I commend the hard work that got us here,” Cooper said in a statement Thursday just after Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore announced the deal.
The Democratic governor would like to see it happen sooner than in Republican leaders’ plans, which would make expansion part of the state budget bill that could pass in June. Medicaid expansion under a House-passed plan would take effect Jan. 1, but Berger indicated that is up in the air.
“Since we all agree this is the right thing to do, we should make it effective now to make sure we leverage the money that will save our rural hospitals and invest in mental health,” Cooper said.
Biden weighs in
President Joe Biden’s Twitter account sent Cooper’s statement to its nearly 30 million followers and added: “I work every day to bring down health care costs, and I’ve called on leaders to do the same. This is what I’m talking about: This bipartisan deal would expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of people.
“That’ll be 40 states who’ve expanded. 10 more to go.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added in a briefing Thursday that Biden’s call to lower health costs “was heeded today in North Carolina where they announced an agreement to expand Medicaid today.
“Expanding Medicaid improves the quality of life for Americans and we thank Gov. Cooper and the bipartisan work in the legislature to expand access to quality health care,” Jean-Pierre said.
“We are excited to see the state move quickly to get half a million North Carolinians coverage, which is incredibly important.”
Berger on timing for Medicaid expansion
Berger said he was “confident that the governor will be pleased with this. My guess is the only thing that he would would quibble about is, he would want the Medicaid expansion provision to be effective immediately. And we will have a conversation about that,” Berger said.
Moore and Berger were planning to meet with Cooper later on Thursday.
Berger told reporters Thursday that the governor had not been directly involved in the most recent negotiations, but “has been clearly involved in being an advocate for expansion.”
Cooper’s call for expansion led to a years-long stalemate, first between the parties, then among Republicans on exactly how to pass it.
Moore said that Cooper encouraged them to resolve the differences between the two chambers. Cooper said he looked forward to “reviewing the details of the bill.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2023 at 12:20 PM with the headline "‘A monumental step.’ Cooper and Biden praise Republican Medicaid expansion agreement."
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