As a key deadline of October 1st looms to fully fund the Medicaid rebase, the House passed a clean bill to keep Medicaid funded. If it is not agreed to by the October 1st deadline by the Senate then reimbursement rates for Medicaid will be cut.

The October 1st deadline was created by Gov. Josh Stein’s Department of Health and Human Services. DHHS Secretary Dev Sangvai in August notified legislators of Gov. Stein’s administration’s intent to begin cutting Medicaid reimbursements.

Rep. Donny Lambeth, Senior Chair of the House Appropriations Committee and Chair of the House Health Committee and a former hospital executive, told WRAL in August that the process being used by Stein’s administration was unusual and premature. Lambeth said, “In my 12 years of working on health issues, I have never seen the department jump to tell providers they will face major cuts when legislators’ oversight committees have not met yet.”

With these cuts being imposed by Gov. Josh Stein’s administration, the House passed a revised version of Senate Bill 403, providing $192 million in new funding, bringing the total for Medicaid rebase to $792 million.

The House’s forward-thinking approach accomplished this by finding savings, such as eliminating vacant positions in DHHS and eliminating GLP-1 coverage for weight-loss only.

Dr. Grant Campbell, a first term member and physician from Cabarrus County, urged Gov. Stein and DHHS to delay the cuts his team is scheduled to impose on October 1st.

Dr. Campbell said, “[DHHS] would not be in a situation where mathematically they would need to do cuts until well into next year when we are in short session. There is time to do this right but the Governor has decided with very little notice to threaten not us, but the North Carolina residents needing healthcare, with massive cuts that will begin months before they have to.”