According to a study released this week, North Carolina’s decision not to expand Medicaid will directly hurt Mecklenburg County’s, and the state’s, pockets.
The report, sponsored by the Cone Health Foundation and the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, found that Mecklenburg County’s “gross county product is $236 million smaller in 2014 and the county lost more than $2 million in county revenue.”
Researchers from George Washington University also said 2,406 fewer jobs will be created here in 2016, and there will be a loss of $18.8 million in tax revenue between 2016 and 2020, if the state doesn’t elect to expand Medicaid next legislative session. Oh, and let’s not forget the 32,316 Mecklenburg County residents who won’t have access to affordable health care. Thanks, McCrory!
As with any great book, I skipped ahead to the last sentence for a spoiler: “Expanding Medicaid would strengthen the economy and bolster job growth in counties all across North Carolina, as well as improve health access for almost half a million North Carolinians.”
You can read the study here.
This article appears in Dec 17-23, 2014.
It doesn’t matter how much it cost or how many people were harmed. It HAD to be denied because the President wanted it expanded.
It is, after all, not about running the state, it is about the war against the other party.
Kate B. Reynolds was the wife of the chairman of RJ Reynolds Tobacco. The Cone Health Foundation was founded by the board of directors of a hospital.
So it’s ever so easy to connect the dots on this one:
1. Poor people smoke more than wealthy people.
2. When poor people smoke, RJ Reynolds makes money.
3. When poor people get sick from smoking, they can’t afford hospitals.
4. Expanding Medicaid subsidizes poor people going to hospitals.
5. When you subsidize something, you get more of it.
6. When more poor people go to the hospital, the board of directors of the hospital makes money.