Medicaid coverage will likely be cut next month – and state employees and teachers will continue to go without raises – after Republican legislative leaders concluded a session Tuesday without reaching a compromise on most state budget issues.
Both the House and Senate passed “mini-budget” spending bills during a brief session this week, but only one of the measures got approval from both chambers. That bill would add an additional $65 million in state disaster recovery funding to help victims of tropical storms Helene and Chantal.
It also includes $750,000 to Raleigh-Durham International Airport to help subsidize its newly announced direct flights to Dublin, as well as $51 million in incentives for a steel manufacturing facility in Hertford County and $10 million to help the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport in New Bern build infrastructure to accommodate an unnamed new tenant.
The House and Senate failed to fully approve funding requested by Gov. Josh Stein to address a shortfall in Medicaid funding. Both chambers passed separate bills with the money, but the House wouldn’t agree to the Senate’s insistence on pairing the allocation with funding for a new children’s hospital.
Stein said in a news release Tuesday that the legislature’s failure to act “will lose us critical federal funding and take more than a billion dollars total out of our state’s healthcare system, needlessly hurting people’s health, health care providers and our economy… What’s crazy is that both the House and Senate agree that more funding is needed.”
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services says the Medicaid program will reduce reimbursement rates to healthcare providers starting Oct. 1, and it will eliminate coverage for new weight-loss drugs.
“In order for us to close that gap, which we are legally required to do, we can't spend money we don't have,” DHHS Secretary Dev Sangvai said on the WUNC Politics Podcast. With provider rate cuts, “the most immediate threat is providers who are currently in the Medicaid system will simply get out of the system” and no longer serve those patients.
Senate leader Phil Berger blamed the House for reneging on a previous agreement to provide additional funding for the children’s hospital project.
“Ask the House why they changed their position on the other matters that are in there,” he told reporters who asked about the impasse.
But Rep. Grant Campbell, R-Cabarrus, said the House wants to fund the Medicaid program through a “clean bill” without “playing games and without adding conditions to it.” He argued the looming cuts are “politically motivated” because DHHS could delay the cuts until a later date.
Other bills stall in opposing chamber
While Republicans from the House and Senate came together on a wide-ranging crime and death penalty bill in response to a deadly stabbing in Charlotte last month, the two chambers largely pursued separate agendas this week. Most of the bills that passed one chamber didn’t get a hearing or vote in the other chamber.
Legislators aren’t scheduled to hold another session until Oct. 20.
The House passed these bills without getting support this week from the Senate:
- Tougher criminal penalties for acts of “political violence,” a bill introduced Tuesday in response to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk
- A bill to strengthen criminal history checks for public school job applicants
- A bill to add North Carolina to a multi-state agreement to allow massage therapists to practice using licenses issued by other states
The Senate passed these bills without getting support this week from the House:
- A ban on Planned Parenthood participating in the Medicaid program for non-abortion healthcare services
- Proposed pay raises and bonuses for state law enforcement and correctional officers, but not other state employees or teachers
- An additional “mini-budget” bill that would extend funding for the “Healthy Opportunities” program, which covers non-medical needs like food and rides to medical appointments for low-income people; the bill also includes funding for a veterans home in Fayetteville, school safety grants, public safety communications infrastructure and new or expanded state parks.
The mini-budget bills are a sign that a full budget agreement continues to be elusive, as Republicans continue to disagree on the future of scheduled income tax cuts.
“We continue to have conversations, continue to be willing to have conversations about a more comprehensive budget,” Senate leader Phil Berger said. “We've not been able to reach agreement on those matters, and that's one of the reasons you saw the multiple measures.”
