Medicaid gets a closer look at General Assembly

The Association received a double dose of good news on its No. 1 legislative goal in late November and early December.

More on Medicaid relief

First came word Nov. 30 that the House Select Committee on Health Care, during its initial meeting, created a special subcommittee on Medicaid. Then, a few days later, the Association received notice that the Senate was also interested in creating a Senate Select Committee on County Medicaid Participation.

“This is certainly an indication that all the progress counties made this year on bringing Medicaid relief to the attention of the Legislature is paying off,” said NCACC Executive Director David F. Thompson. “Our staff has been diligent in working with both chambers to create an avenue for counties to continue pushing this issue between sessions.”

The House subcommittee is co-chaired by Rep. Edd Nye (Bladen) and Rep. Beverly Earle (Mecklenburg). When announcing the subcommittee’s membership, Rep. Nye discussed a recent news article that reported some counties are spending more on Medicaid than for any other county service, including public education. Nye noted that the subcommittee needed to look at ways to reduce the county Medicaid burden.

The subcommittee’s membership includes Reps. Arlie Culp (Randolph), Margaret Dickson (Cumberland), Julia Howard (Davie), Bill Owens (Pasquotank), Ray Rapp (Madison), Ronnie Sutton (Robeson) and Trudi Walend (Transylvania).

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand (Cumberland) has called for a meeting with Senate leaders and Association officers and staff to complete Senate and outside appointments to the Senate Select Committee.

Late in last year’s legislative session, Sen. Rand advanced a proposal to the Association that would have involved a complicated swap in which counties would give up one cent of their sales tax revenue in exchange for immediate state takeover of the county Medicaid share. Counties would also have been given the authority to adopt a new half-cent sales tax as part of the deal.

The NCACC Board of Directors rejected the proposal in June as being too costly to counties without some sort of hold harmless arrangement to ensure that no counties would lose revenue. The Board pledged to continue working with Sen. Rand to see if some sort of revenue swap could be found that would be equitable to all sides.

In preparation for these events, the Association has put into place a work group of managers and finance officers to examine the financial implications of Medicaid. This working group will hold its first meeting Dec. 16.

Lee County Commissioner Amy Stevens, chair of the NCACC Human Resources Steering Committee, and First Vice President Terry Garrison of Vance County, chair of the Association’s Taxation and Finance Steering Committee, will co-chair the work group.