Jamie Howell
   Staff Writer

The League of Women Voters (LWV) held a luncheon called “Medicaid expansion: the price of politics in NC” on Tuesday at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.

“the League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, political organization that never endorses parties or candidates, but it does advocate for sound and just public policies,” Margaret Salinger, a co-president of the LWV, said.

According to Salinger, the issue the LWV advocated for on Tuesday was the expansion of Medicaid in NC.

“Most people think that all poor people are covered by Medicaid, but, in fact only 30 percent of the people living below the federal poverty level are covered in NC. And of the folks who aren’t covered, more than 60 percent have jobs,” Salinger wrote in an email on Thursday.

Susan Shumaker, the president of the Cone Health Foundation and panel member at Tuesday’s meeting, along with Allen Smart, the interim president and vice president of programs at the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust wrote an op-ed for the News and Record.

“It is important to understand North Carolina’s current Medicaid coverage policy — you must be a low-income child, a pregnant woman, an extremely low-income parent, a low-income senior or a person with a disability to qualify for Medicaid in North Carolina,” the op-ed piece said.

Shumaker and Smart wrote that, because of those guidelines, adults with no young children are not eligible for Medicaid even if their income puts them below the poverty line.

Another problem faced by NC residents, according to Shumaker and Smart, is that many people don’t qualify for tax credits from healthcare.gov because their income is too low; there are also those who don’t qualify for Medicaid because their income is too high.

According to a statewide study conducted by the Cone Health Foundation, expanding Medicaid would allow 500,000 NC residents to have insurance. The study also shows that over 43,000 jobs would be created by 2020.

The study breaks down the state by county, showing the gains each county would experience if Medicaid were expanded. For example, the study predicts that Guilford County would gain 1,653 jobs in 2016 with the expansion of Medicaid.

According to Shumaker and Smart, “the report makes the case that closing the coverage gap could be an important engine for economic growth and job creation across the breadth of North Carolina.”

“The League of Women Voters of North Carolina is engaged in statewide campaign to push for Medicaid expansion,” Salinger wrote. “Our campaign focuses primarily on grassroots efforts to educate voters and encourage advocacy.”

She wrote that their efforts include — but are not limited to — presentations, lobbying the legislators and distributing information to constituents.

“We want to extract the issue from the jaws of partisan politics because partisan politics obstruct progress and obscure the facts,” Salinger wrote.

According to the News and Records coverage of Tuesday’s meeting, out of 50 states, 17 haven’t adopted Medicaid expansion, and NC is one of them.

The article says that republican leaders in NC are against expansion because they see it as a “poorly designed intrusion into the health care system.”

A Washington Post article written in 2014 reported that Gov. Pat McCrory (R) said he would “consider a plan to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.”

According to the article, because of a measure he signed in 2013, McCrory can’t expand Medicaid through executive action; he would have to get the consent of the legislature.

According to the News and Records coverage of Tuesday’s luncheon, there were about 150 members of the LWV present to listen to speakers Susan Shumaker, Rob Luisanna, managing partner for Pilot Benefits, and Adam Linker, co-director for the Health Access Coalition at the N.C. Justice Center.

Salinger wrote that the LWV holds meetings on the third Tuesday of every month between September and April at the Holy Trinity Episcopal church and that they are open to the public.