Our View: Medicaid expansion would aid struggling hospitals

Nash UNC Health Care officials joined a growing chorus of hospital administrators last week in decrying the negative effects they continue to suffer due to the N.C. General Assembly’s failure to expand Medicaid.The federal government expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, under which the feds would have covered 100 percent of the state’s Medicaid expansion costs through this year and at least 90 percent after that. But Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Pat McCrory have refused to join the dozens of states that have taken advantage of the opportunity to increase health care coverage for their citizens while helping struggling, rural hospitals better make ends meet.Nash UNC Health Care CEO Larry Chewning told Nash County commissioners last week that the Nash UNC Emergency Room alone is losing $2 million every year due to the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid. He was very likely speaking to a …
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