Conservative leaders at the North Carolina General Assembly announced a deal has been reached for additional funding for the Medicaid rebase in a revised version of House Bill 696.

In addition to budgeting $319 million to meet the shortfall in the Medicaid rebase for this fiscal year, the revised House Bill 696 includes more stringent guardrails on the program to cut back on waste.

On X, Speaker Destin Hall shared, “Medicaid should serve the people who truly need it. After [Gov. Josh Stein] let costs run wild, we’re tightening things up by adding common-sense guardrails that cut down on waste, fraud, and abuse. NC taxpayers deserve confidence that their money is being spent wisely, and patients deserve a system that prioritizes care for those who depend on it the most.”

In an attempt to manufacture a political crisis, Gov. Stein’s administration implemented unprecedented cuts to Medicaid reimbursements last fall, reversing course in December after Stein’s gambit failed. 

Rep. Donny Lambeth, a senior budget writer and health chair, said in a press release at the time of Gov. Stein backing down from the manufactured crisis, “Fortunately, the Stein administration finally recognized the negative impact their unnecessary rate cuts had on providers and some of the most vulnerable patients they care for. Holding provider rates stable, as the House has pushed for the last four months, is recognition that patients do not need to be worried about their healthcare access in the future. We have much more work to do to continue improving care at a reasonable and fair cost.”

The new guardrails placed on the Medicaid program include:

• Increasing eligibility monitoring from quarterly to monthly reviews
• Limiting the use of self-attestation in verifying of Medicaid eligibility
• Annual reporting on fraud, waste, and abuse to be submitted to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Medicaid as well as the Fiscal Research Division

In recent months legislators have ramped up investigation into potential fraud, waste, and abuse of the Medicaid program, holding hearings throughout the interim. Two weeks ago we shared about two oversight committees that reviewed Medicaid spending on Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). 

That same week State Auditor Dave Boliek released his Statewide Single Audit, which “examined $28 billion in federal grants spent by North Carolina entities for Fiscal Year 2025.” Of the 19 findings across 13 entities reviewed in Boliek’s report, DHHS was responsible for 8 of the 19.

The Medicaid funding and oversight agreement reached by conservative legislators keeps promises to North Carolina citizens: to fund the programs that need to be funded, while keeping a firm grip on controlling spending.