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The legislation is being promoted by Speaker Tim Moore, who said it was a response to a wide-ranging health care access bill backed by GOP Senate leader Phil Berger that contains expansion and received overwhelming bipartisan support earlier this month.
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The Medicaid expansion bill includes, word for word, the SAVE Act, a policy that nurses advocate for, but physicians oppose. If approved, it would loosen regulations on nurses that supporters say would increase access and reduce costs. However those in opposition to change say loosened regulations would reduce quality of care.
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Support was nearly unanimous in the chamber for the measure, which also loosens practice restrictions on specialty nurses and eases government scrutiny of medical construction and equipment.
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Senate leader Phil Berger was a longtime opponent of accepting federal funds through the 2010 Affordable Care Act to cover people that make too much money to qualify for traditional Medicaid, but too little to qualify for subsidized private plans.
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North Carolina is one of a dozen states that have not expanded Medicaid.
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The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates nearly 400,000 people would be covered if North Carolina expands Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
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Judges heard arguments this week over whether North Carolina’s new Congressional and Legislative districts are unconstitutional and should be struck down. Meanwhile, Republican legislative leaders offered a hint that Medicaid expansion could receive serious consideration at the General Assembly later this year. Host Jeff Tiberii reviews the week in North Carolina politics with Rob Schofield of NC Policy Watch and Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation.
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The North Carolina Senate’s top Republican, a longtime opponent of expanding Medicaid through the 2010 federal health care law, says he’s now been willing to consider enacting expansion as part of horse-trading with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper over a state budget.
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The latest budget offer that North Carolina Republicans sent to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper wouldn't expand Medicaid broadly as Cooper seeks, but it does sweeten a previous proposal on worker pay raises, a top GOP legislator says.
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North Carolina lawmakers start a new legislative session this week at a time when partisanship and bitterness nationwide have reached a peak.After rioters…