Winston Salem Times

Groups supporting a North Carolina bill that would expand Medicaid have started advertising as part of an effort to pressure legislators to pass the legislation early next year.

Legislators recently said they would not act on the bill during their end-of-year work session, instead pushing the bill back to next year. By not acting on it, the lawmakers are making it hard for more than half a million North Carolinians to access medical care.

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

The American Cancer Society is among those groups that have already launched advertising campaigns—using money that could have been used to find cures for cancer—as they try to get voters to voice concerns to their representatives and demand action, WRAL said in a recent editorial report. Those ads are “urging lawmakers to expand Medicaid” to “more than 600,000 veterans, farmers and cancer patients.” 

“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 in the editorial. 

The announced delay drew criticism.

“Waiting until next year is astonishingly wasteful, irresponsible and cruel, costing us lives and billions of dollars,” Cooper spokesperson Mary Scott Winstead told the Associated Press after the decision was made public. 

WRAL’s editorial said there is no reason that justifies the delay. The editorial called the fact that national legislative leaders forced a ban on Medicaid expansion since 2014 nothing more than a “mean-spirited display of antipathy” toward former President Barack Obama and his health care overhaul. 

Only 11 states have not yet expanded Medicaid. With the federal government consenting to take on almost all the cost, North Carolina’s inaction has left more than $40 billion in federal funding that would have come to the state since 2014. Meanwhile, North Carolinians have seen some of their federal tax withholdings go to help pay for Medicaid expansion in Arkansas, Louisiana, Utah, Indiana and, most recently, South Dakota.

Not expanding Medicaid has contributed to the state’s death toll and more, advocates said. Between 4,240 and 15,200 people who weren’t able to get lifesaving care have died; 110,458 women have missed mammograms; 236,500 diabetics have not been able to get necessary medication; and 118,000 jobs that would have been created with the federal funds have not yet come to the state.

The editorial criticized lawmakers for coming up with excuses for not acting, adding that no reason justifies the failure to do 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. It called on lawmakers to usher the legislation through quickly at the start of the 2023 session in January.