Healthcare
I will fight to protect and expand Medicaid in North Carolina.
Every time the issue of expanding Medicaid comes up, my opponent remains silent or makes comments like “the only people that benefit from Medicaid expansion are the people who get free insurance”. We have 10,000 children and half a million people in North Carolina without health insurance, and we are sending $3 billion dollars to other states. That’s money that should be benefitting the most vulnerable among us.
I will fight to protect the part that Planned Parenthood plays in the healthcare of thousands of North Carolina women.
I will fight to lower the costs of healthcare for every citizen of North Carolina
Medicaid Expansion
MEDICAID EXPANSION
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Of the 50 American states, only 14 have failed to expand Medicaid. What these states have in common is that they are all governed by Republican-dominated legislatures whose members care more about their obsession with small government and their opposition to any legislation passed during the the Obama administration than they do about the health and well-being of their constituents.
My opponent, Frank Iler, is no exception, voting in 2013 to deny expansion in our state. When asked why he opposed Medicaid expansion,
his response was, the only people benefiting from Medicaid expansion are those people who get free insurance.
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Expanding healthcare access in normal times is the right thing to do. Expanding Medicaid in this time of national crisis is nothing short of a moral imperative and will be at the top of my list. No one should ever have to choose between their physical heath and their financial well-being.
Rural Hospitals
RURAL HOSPITALS
One third of rural hospitals In the United States have either closed or are at risk of closing. Why are these hospitals under so much pressure? According to a recent article by Vox, the primary reason is the failure of some states, like North Carolina, to expand Medicaid.
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For residents in rural areas like Brunswick County, the ramifications of this are obvious and serious. In counties that have lost their hospitals, mortality rates have increased and average life expectancy has decreased.
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The financial health of our rural hospitals is a life or death situation. North Carolina must expand Medicaid and, in addition, provide the kind of support that will assure their survival.
Addiction Treatment
ADDICTION TREATMENT
Opioid addiction has become a public health care crisis in North Carolina. From 1999–2016, more than 1300 North Carolinians died from opioid related overdoses. Brunswick County recorded 249 opioid poisoning deaths between 1999-2015, 390 emergency room visits between 2008-2014, and 274 hospitalizations between 1999-2013
I support and am committed to additional funding for the Strengthen Opioid Misuse Prevention (STOP) Act. Greater focus on smarter prescribing, smarter dispensing, and a renewed commitment to recovery are needed to save lives
How does this effect you?
The coronavirus has served as a wake-up call for North Carolina, illustrating the suffering caused by the inequities in our state's healthcare system.You may have good medical coverage, but the lack of insurance by others forces hospitals to absorb costs that, in most states, would be covered by Medicaid. The loss of our rural hospitals threatens us all, whether we have insurance of not.