NC lawmakers’ quick deal on Medicaid funding is a positive sign of what’s to come | Opinion
It took less than a day for the North Carolina General Assembly to show signs of progress after a months-long standoff over Medicaid funding.
On their first day back in Raleigh, lawmakers announced a deal to close the $319 million Medicaid funding gap, fully funding the program for the remainder of the fiscal year. State health officials have been warning since last summer that failing to close the gap could force them to make painful cuts that put the health of low-income and rural North Carolinians in jeopardy. The bill has not yet been publicly released, but GOP leaders said it would also include additional provisions that prevent “waste, fraud and abuse” and address the program’s growing costs.
The good news, of course, is that Medicaid won’t run out of money in the next few weeks. Unable to reach an agreement on a budget, lawmakers passed a stopgap spending plan last summer, but it fell short of what was needed to keep the program adequately funded amid rising costs and enrollment. The House and Senate had agreed on the need to pass additional legislation to close the gap, but dueling proposals of how to do so meant that it never actually happened. Both sides blamed each other for the impasse and rejected Gov. Josh Stein’s call for a special session to address the issue.
But it’s also a positive sign that tensions between the House and Senate may have eased enough to make this year’s legislative session more productive than the last. They’re now one step closer to resolving the impasse that has made North Carolina the only state in the country without a budget. House Speaker Destin Hall said Tuesday that “some progress has been made” on the budget so far, The News & Observer reported. There may still be a long way to go, but after a year of prolonged disappointment and deadlock, any progress is better than nothing.
Deputy Opinion Editor Paige Masten is covering politics and the 2026 elections for The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer.
