Rejection of Medicaid expansion in NC gets a price tag

Medicaid Counter adds up the losses

Last year, Gov. McCrory and North Carolina's Republican-controlled General Assembly balked at expanding Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Even though rejection would deny over 500,000 North Carolinians access to any health insurance and even though Republican governors and legislatures in other states backed expansion, North Carolina's extremist Republican leadership refused to expand Medicaid anyway.

Our governor and legislature rejected Medicaid expansion even though the federal government would have paid the entire tab for the first few years and 90 percent of the costs afterwards. That's money North Carolina taxpayers have already sent to Washington, DC, by the way.

How much money then is NOT flowing back to North Carolina from the federal government to shore up our health care system for the low-income North Carolinians?

The answer is $4.9 million every day.

The folks at Community Catalyst worked up a counter to track how much money our state is losing every second Republicans here refuse to expand Medicaid. Take a look: