Politicians on both sides of the aisle believe there’s an issue with accessing affordable health care in North Carolina, but differ in some ways on how they want to tackle that issue.
During a Tuesday round table with Democratic Senate candidate Cheri Beasley, people from all walks of life and medical experience discussed their concerns with access to health care in the state.
The group talked about a lack of local and affordable providers near rural and minority communities.
Nurses also brought up the current staffing crisis and struggle to retain health care workers.
To this, Beasley said she wants to see better financial aid and incentives to get people working in health care without loads of student debt.
“One of the things you heard come up was to make sure that health care providers that are going to school and getting these very important degrees and acquiring the expertise in these areas really need help with student loans,” Beasley said.
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Access to health care has also become a hot topic in the North Carolina General Assembly, where a new bi-partisan committee recently started up with the goal of bringing costs down and expanding options for people.
It’s called the Joint Legislative Committee on Access to Healthcare and Medicaid Expansion.
“There clearly is an access to care problem,” Republican House Speaker Tim Moore said.
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Despite calls from Democrats to expand Medicaid resources, Moore said he wants to see other solutions instead.
“There are other options. For example, making sure that those who are eligible under the Affordable Care Act take advantage of those resources,” Moore said.
Meanwhile, at her round table, Beasley advocated for more to be done like an expansion of the Affordable Care Act with a public option.
“We need to make sure people can have the health care provider of their choices,” Beasley said.
The North Carolina spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee later released a statement about the meeting:
“After months of avoiding the press, Cheri Beasley is trying to pivot rather than discuss the issues directly impacting North Carolinians such as the rise in inflation, Biden’s weak foreign policy, a stagnant economy and the supply-chain crisis,” Alex Nolley said in a news release.
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