State Health Plan

N.C. Treasurer Dale Folwell relented in his fight with the state's major hospitals to lower costs and increase transparency.

Monday night at midnight is the new deadline for doctors and hospitals to sign on to the refined State Health Plan. Those that don't would go out of network, leaving the more than 700,000 North Carolinians on the plan to stare at potentially significantly larger hospital bills in 2020.

North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell is playing a massive game of chicken with every hospital in the state and more than a few doctors and provider practices.

Some North Carolina legislators agreed Tuesday to derail pending pricing changes for the state employee health insurance plan that hospital leaders argue won't solve the problems that State Treasurer Dale Folwell seeks to address.

A former North Carolina Supreme Court chief justice and other retired state government workers and teachers aren't exempted from paying health insurance premiums because they had a deal with the state to keep their benefits unchanged, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The open enrollment period ends next week for 720,000 North Carolina employees and teachers, and for the second year in a row, the State Health Plan coverage excludes gender dysphoria treatment for transgender and non-binary employees.

The State Health Plan will change vendors for its smoking cessation program.

The plan, which provides health insurance coverage to 727,000 North Carolina public sector teachers, current and former lawmakers, and retirees and their dependents, will switch from QuitlineNC to CVS Caremark’s MinuteClinic.