Reform Medicaid by Expanding It

Remarks delivered on March 30 by Volunteer Program Associate Sandy Irving at the Raleigh public hearing on Medicaid reform.

As Medicaid reform is being planned, please consider including Medicaid expansion in the reform package. Providing health insurance for everyone and closing the gap for one-half million North Carolinians, currently without health insurance, is a moral issue. It is unethical to have a system that does not provide health insurance for everyone.

There are many good reasons for “closing the gap” or expanding Medicaid – such as being good for our economy, keeping NC hospitals and health clinics open, containing costs and providing more jobs—all of these solid reasons for expanding Medicaid and including this in the reform package could help it get considered more expediently.

But the main reason to include Medicaid expansion in the reform package is that it is the right thing to do.

All religious faiths have a mandate to care for our sisters and brothers — to do unto others as we want done for us — how many would like to live in NC without health insurance? So as you consider how to reform the delivery of Medicaid. I would  appeal to your conscious  to close the gap and have a reform package that will provide health insurance for all God’s children.