NC House leaders want to expand Medicaid – but only to coronavirus patients
A committee in North Carolina’s state House plans to unveil next week a draft bill that addresses the needs of various organizations working on the front lines of the deadly pandemic — including a limited expansion of Medicaid for uninsured COVID-19 patients.
Republican House Speaker Tim Moore told legislators he is in support of a limited Medicaid expansion that would pay for the testing and treatment of uninsured COVID-19 patients, something committee chairman Rep. Josh Dobson, R-McDowell, suggested earlier in the meeting.
“If you have folks who have tested positive for this, it should pay for that treatment and of course pay for the testing as well,” Moore said. “That’s something I support.”
A House Republican proposal for a Medicaid expansion compromise, with work requirements, never made it out of the chamber last year. Disagreement over whether to expand Medicaid as allowed by the federal Affordable Care Act — a top priority of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper — was one of the biggest sticking points that kept the Republican-controlled General Assembly and governor from agreeing on a budget last year.
Moore also told lawmakers that he had been receiving many phone calls from people trying to donate personal protective equipment and that if a medical facility needed any to let him know. “I feel like I’ve become the broker of medical supplies,” Moore said.
The 16 members of the N.C. House Select Committee on COVID-19 Health Work Group, largely made up of health-care workers, also reviewed Thursday the 69 requests they received in meetings over the past several weeks.
“Our committee’s responsibility is to try to put a priority on those that we feel like are important as to warrant being in a bill,” said Rep. Donny Lambeth, “and then coordinate those with federal relief acts, CARES Act, and coordinate those with the governor’s office and what they will be funding; their requests.”
Lambeth, R-Forsyth, told the committee members they needed to come up with a list of priorities so they could develop a draft bill over the next week.
A list, which wasn’t available during the start of the meeting but was later published to the committee’s online folder, showed eight categories with 24 issues split between each. Those issues include providing personal protective equipment, telehealth, hospital emergency funding and access to federal funding, among many others.
Lambeth also suggested the bill include an expiration date so that controversial items needed to aid the COVID-19 pandemic would gain larger support than they might as a permanent change. He said if those items are needed in the long term, the House could take it up later.
Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield, D-Wilson, said the committee should group the items by topic and find any duplications or overlaps that could be merged together. Rep. Larry Yarborough, R-Person, said there were at least a dozen items on the list that the governor could act on without legislation. He said staff could sort that out while drafting the bill.
The group plans to meet remotely again on April 23 to review the draft bill and finalize it to present on April 28 at the beginning of the legislature’s short session. Moore told the committee that the building would be closed to the public during the short session to allow only lawmakers and their employees to enter the building.
Lambeth said later in the meeting he had received a text message from Moore’s office saying that while his staff is still working out the details, Moore does not believe lawmakers need to be in Raleigh before April 30 to vote on the bills filed on April 28-29.
Unlikely in Senate
The House has been discussing potential legislation in COVID-19 committee meetings since late March after members were appointed to bipartisan committees by Moore.
On the Senate side, Senate leader Phil Berger and Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue sent out a joint letter March 31 to senators, soliciting ideas ahead of the session about appropriations, education, justice and public safety, economic development, health and human services, revenue laws and unemployment.
“We are actively working together to build consensus on legislative action to address the coronavirus challenge,” Berger and Blue wrote.
In the weeks since, senators have shared ideas between each other for possible legislation to propose when the General Assembly convenes April 28. But none of those ideas have been made public, until Friday when Senate Democrats released some summaries from within their caucus’ own working groups. They largely mirror what the House committees have been working on. No Republican or bipartisan Senate proposals have been made public.
Blue said their ideas are things for which they think can get bipartisan support. Already, legislative leaders of both parties and the governor announced they want to pass tax relief that would waive interest on late tax payments. Both the IRS and North Carolina extended the income tax filing and payment deadlines from April 15 to July 15.
One thing that’s not at the top of Senate Democrats’ proposals is Medicaid expansion, Blue said.
“We still think that is a very important issue and one we think will flow from this crisis,” Blue told reporters Friday. “Probably, since [the legislature] fought about it for two years, it probably won’t be a consensus item.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 7:12 PM with the headline "NC House leaders want to expand Medicaid – but only to coronavirus patients."
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