Gov. Josh Stein has been playing politics with the healthcare of millions of North Carolinians.
Beginning Oct. 1, Stein ordered DHHS to reduce reimbursement rates for several Medicaid services because, according to him, the “General Assembly’s failure to fully fund the Medicaid program has forced the state to make cuts to this vital program.”
What Stein is leaving out, however, is the fact that the General Assembly in August approved a bill providing a $600 million in added spending to address the Medicaid “rebase,” an increase in spending to accommodate increasing enrollment and expenditures in the program.
Stein can’t claim ignorance of this added funding, because he signed the bill into law himself.
With full knowledge of this added funding, Stein nevertheless ordered the Medicaid cuts in an attempt to score political points against the legislature.
Stein’s cuts are unnecessary and premature, especially in light of the fact that the legislature passed its Medicaid rebase funding bill in November last year, so it was premature on Oct. 1 for Stein to impose these cuts.
NCDHHS says their projections show that another $319 million will be required to fully fund the rebase for this year, which would bring the total increase to nearly $1 billion over last year. Even if these projections are accurate, however, ordering the cuts was far premature. As Rep. Donny Lambeth (R-Winston-Salem), a 12-year member of the legislature said, “I’ve never seen this happen with HHS since I’ve been here, where they reduce rates before we got through the year,” adding “We reconcile towards the end of the year, and that’s what I thought we would do this year.”
Stein has described the cuts he ordered as “devastating,” and NC DHHS Secretary Devdutta Sangvai has admitted that Stein’s cuts are “extremely difficult for our provider community, especially those in rural areas and underserved areas,” and that “lower reimbursement rates strain the (providers’) ability” to provide services. But political concerns trump the needs of Medicaid patients for Stein.
His effort to leverage Medicaid cuts as a tool to vilify the legislature paid off recently when more than 200 advocates and people with disabilities traveled to Raleigh to pressure the legislature to act – despite the fact that the cuts that are impacting them were enacted by Stein.
And the disingenuousness just gets worse. On Monday, during his “NC Strong Update,” Stein urged the legislature to address “painful cuts” to “critical mental health funding” made by legislative cuts. Included in these cuts, and called out specifically by Stein, is $18.5 million from the state’s behavioral health system, $15.6 million from psychiatric inpatient and crisis beds, and $10 million from the Mental Health Task Force.
What Stein leaves out is that these cuts were included in the same bill that allocated the $600 million in rebase funding, a bill that I remind you Stein himself signed. Calling them “legislative cuts” when he signed his name to the bill is disingenuous political finger pointing.
Stein didn’t have to order Medicaid reimbursement cuts on Oct. 1, but he did anyway in hopes that he could pin the “devastating” consequences on the legislature. He also pretends to be upset about specific cuts to mental health services, even though he signed the bill enacting those cuts. He hopes you won’t notice.
Stein is putting care for North Carolina’s most needy at risk in a cynical ploy to score political points. We shouldn’t let him get away with it.
