It’s all thanks to a first-of-its-kind state initiative started last year by former NC Governor Roy Cooper. Cooper and the former Health Secretary. Kody Kinsley used North Carolina’s Medicaid expansion, which Cooper championed for years, to incentivize all 99 acute care hospitals in the state to join the debt relief effort.
Primary care practices, particularly those in rural and underserved parts of the state, will be impacted the hardest, according to the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians.
If the credits expire, the average North Carolinian enrollee is expected to pay $672 more annually for the same health insurance plan they currently have, with even greater increases expected for rural residents. Many residents won’t be able to afford this increase, putting 157,000 North Carolinians at risk of losing coverage, Stein cautions.
Cooper described what will be a “nasty shock” for North Carolinians on November 1st, when the ACA Marketplace begins open enrollment for next year. “They’re about to be notified that their health insurance premiums are going through the roof. Because insurance companies are raising their premiums on top of federal subsidies not being renewed by Congress in this ‘big, beautiful bill.’”
As part of a national movement to “demand a fully funded and fully staffed VA”, nurses and union supporters voiced their concerns about the recent changes outside of Senator Ted Budd’s Wilmington office.
A top state health administrator warned recently that North Carolina faces myriad expensive challenges that could mean more hunger, untreated illnesses, and financial strain for families across the state, according to NC Newsline.
In addition to putting the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians at risk, the changes to Medicaid are expected to negatively impact rural hospitals, potentially leading to the closure of some health clinics in rural communities across the country.
For North Carolina, the cuts proposed in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act are projected to erase $32 billion in Medicaid funding over the next decade, along with food assistance, funding for public schools, and clean energy tax credits.
Nearly one million North Carolinians who rely on ACA health plans are bracing for a costly one-two punch next year: major premium hikes and the loss of federal subsidies that have kept coverage affordable, according to WRAL.
The 32-page bill, a watered-down version of the original 1,000-page state budget proposed in April, makes major cuts to health care services in the state. This comes not even a month after Congress passed H.R. 1, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, which made major cuts to Medicaid, endangering the healthcare of over half a million people in North Carolina alone.