North Carolina

[Crafty_Dog]

DEfinitely a Dem source, but it focuses on NC and so I receive it.   Her husband, is a charimatic black conservative who first came to notice for his eloquent assertion of gun rights and he is running for governor but at the moment looks to lose.   He has shot his mouth off in a couple of ways the left him vulnerable to smears, and now this:


https://ncnewsline.com/2024/07/30/if-this-is-privatization-give-us-more-government-bureaucracy/?emci=cd9e18e6-0f4e-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&emdi=bb3c4246-6b4e-ef11-86c3-6045bdd9e096&ceid=244814

[Crafty_Dog]

https://ncnewsline.com/2024/08/13/two-million-north-carolinians-could-benefit-as-hospitals-sign-on-to-medical-debt-forgiveness-program/?emci=a7877c54-1159-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&emdi=5a929f92-6b59-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&ceid=244814

Two million North Carolinians could benefit as hospitals sign on to debt forgiveness program • NC Newsline

Two million North Carolinians could benefit as hospitals sign on to debt forgiveness program
By: Ahmed Jallow - August 13, 2024 5:30 am
     
News conference on reducing medical debt.
 Dave Almeida of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, NC DHHS Secretary Kody Kinsley and Gov. Roy Cooper at a July 2024 press conference on medical debt forgiveness. (Photo: Lynn Bonner)

Gov. Roy Cooper announced Monday that 2 million North Carolinians will have their medical debt forgiven after all the state’s 99 acute hospitals signed up for a landmark program designed to wipe out debt for low- and middle-income patients. 

The announcement comes after last month’s federal approval of the Cooper administration’s plan to forgive up to $4 billion in hospital debt for millions of people in the state. Under the plan, federal payments to hospitals from the Health Access and Stabilization Program (HASP) would increase in exchange for the hospitals eliminating old debt and helping patients avoid new ones.

“This is a win, win, win,” said Cooper. “It’ll help our hospitals, our people, and our economy thrive.” 

The participating hospitals, including North Carolina’s largest hospital systems, account for most of the medical debts in the state. 

By signing on to the plan, hospitals have committed to eliminating medical debt dating back to January 2014, for all Medicaid beneficiaries, as well as uncollectible medical debt for all patients with incomes at or below 350% of the federal poverty level. Past medical debt exceeding 5% of a person’s annual income will also be forgiven.

“Medical debt is a disease, plain and simple,” said state Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley. “It’s a debt that no one wants, no one chooses to have cancer, to get in a car accident or have a heart attack. It’s debt that, even after hospitals spend millions of dollars and years trying to collect, is rarely collected.”

Kinsley also highlighted another policy change during his speech: shifting the responsibility of enrolling patients in charity care programs to hospitals. He said this change will make a huge difference by eliminating the need for patients to navigate complex paperwork.

“It is transformational,” he said. 

“We know that so many more people are currently eligible for charity care programs today, but often struggle navigating paperwork or signing up, because often when you’re recovering from a heart attack or a stroke, that is not the best moment for you to figure out how to get into the charity care program.”

Patients enrolled in public benefit programs like WIC, SNAP, or Medicaid, and those experiencing homelessness, will automatically qualify for charity care by January 2025. By July 2025, participating hospitals must forgive past Medicaid debt, implement policies to protect credit ratings, and prevent aggressive debt collection as well as publicly post debt relief policies.

“This is an exciting step forward in alleviating the burden of medical debt for North Carolina families,” said Reggie Shuford, Executive Director of the anti-poverty advocacy organization, the NC Justice Center, in a statement. “Hospital support for medical debt protections is crucial to making health care more affordable in North Carolina, particularly for communities of color, who we know experience an inequitable share of medical debt and poor health outcomes.”   

Officials are touting the program as a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country. 

“This is, by and large, one of the largest medical debt forgiveness programs we have seen in the country, and also one of the most ambitious policies that we have seen to prevent medical debt from accruing in the first place,” said Kinsley. 

Hospitals participating in the program will receive HASP payments that will bring an estimated $4 billion into the state this fiscal year and a projected $6.3 billion in the next year. 

DHHS is collaborating with the nonprofit organization Undue Medical Debt and other nonprofits to work with hospitals over the next two years to implement the program. Patients do not need to take any action to benefit from the new initiative.

[Crafty_Dog]

NORTH CAROLINA

Qualifying hospitals join debt reduction effort, Cooper says

Touts higher Medicaid payments

By Gary D. Robertson ASSOCIATED PRESS RALEIGH, N.C. | All qualifying North Carolina hospitals have agreed to participate in a first-ofits- kind initiative that will give them higher Medicaid payments if medical debt of low- and middle- income patients they hold is relieved and they carry out ways for future patients to avoid liability, Gov. Roy Cooper announced Monday.

Mr. Cooper and state Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley unveiled six weeks ago a proposal submitted to federal Medicaid regulators that they said could help about 2 million people in the state get rid of $4 billion in debt held by hospitals, which can usually recoup only a small portion.

“This makes sense for the hospitals, their patients and their communities,” Mr. Cooper said at a news conference in which he revealed all 99 qualifying hospitals — including the state’s largest hospital systems — have committed to the voluntary debt-elimination effort.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services signed off last month on the plan details, which build on a Medicaid reimbursement program started recently for 99 acute-care, rural or universityconnected hospitals. The hospitals were asked to make their participation decisions known by late last week.

Changes that benefit consumers will begin in the coming months, including by next July 1 the elimination of medical debt going back to early 2014 for the hospitals’ patients who are Medicaid enrollees. The hospitals in time will also eliminate medical debt that is more than 2 years old for nonenrollees who make below certain incomes or whose debt exceeds 5% of their annual income.

“We are often confronted with messages that tackling medical debt is impossible,” said Jose Penabad, a board member with Undue Medical Debt, a national group that will work with North Carolina hospitals, but “today is a message of hope.”

The hospitals will also agree to carry out programs going forward to discourage debt. By Jan. 1, for example, hospitals will automatically enroll people in charity care programs if they qualify for food stamps and other welfare programs.

And by July, they’ll have to curb debt collection practices by not telling credit reporting agencies about unpaid bills and by capping interest rates on medical debt.

The qualifying hospitals already participate in what’s called the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program. The General Assembly approved it last year along with expanded Medicaid coverage to working adults who couldn’t otherwise qualify for conventional Medicaid. Hospitals pay assessments to draw down billions of dollars in federal money.

The HASP hospitals are now poised to receive even higher levels of reimbursement by agreeing to the medical debt initiatives. Mr. Kinsley’s department said that hospitals that otherwise would have shared funds from a pot of $3.2 billion this fiscal year now will benefit from an estimated $4 billion and a projected $6.3 billion in the next year.

Other state and local governments have tapped into federal American Rescue Plan funds to help purchase and cancel residents’ debt for pennies on the dollar Mr. Cooper, a Democrat who leaves the job in January, acknowledged recently that hospitals had responded somewhat negatively to the medical debt effort. He said Monday he believed that hospitals were put off initially because HASP funds previously unrestricted were now going to be tied to debt-reduction incentives.

But ultimately “these hospitals looked at the bottom line, looked at the benefits to their patients and communities and decided to sign up,” he said

[Crafty_Dog]

https://ncnewsline.com/2024/08/20/nc-legislative-leaders-and-the-inevitable-temptations-of-power/?emci=a3b43f2f-8c5e-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&emdi=97342abb-eb5e-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&ceid=244814

[DougMacG]

https://ncnewsline.com/2024/08/20/nc-legislative-leaders-and-the-inevitable-temptations-of-power/?emci=a3b43f2f-8c5e-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&emdi=97342abb-eb5e-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&ceid=244814

I hate the term Uniparty implying the parties are the same and your vote doesn't matter.  Then at times the elected Republicans act that way, defeating their own cause.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article291919725.html?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawFO6oNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHf6__w8bDzowqJxUJQPOFNEzBk9RxIht6TaC8qhROAqjMlhggFi-KDsN_Q_aem_jBO3SEnDURZb2YU4YZ1YPQ

https://www.wwaytv3.com/expert-warns-of-increased-copperhead-presence-as-weather-cools/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFO72tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVYnmIU6KkE_kqHS3YBQ9eY3s3ANXN_9rKVhs1uSmjIKT_ZYr1sfUGI_qg_aem_WWQBo4E5JW4qUAzTG6Gobw