In his story about the rate of uninsured in the U.S. and in North Carolina, Richard Craver of the Winston-Salem Journal asked JLF’s Mitch Kokai for his thoughts on health insurance and the Affordable Care Act. Craver reports slightly more than 1 million North Carolinians lack health insurance.
“Force people to buy insurance or pay a penalty, and it shouldn’t surprise you when more people end up buying insurance,” Kokai said.
“What might be more surprising is the fact that the Affordable Care Act, with all of its disruption of the health care marketplace, has left so many people still lacking insurance.”
Kokai said he does not expect the Census report “to do much to move the needle in the political debate over health care in North Carolina.”
“Gov. Cooper and his team want to expand Medicaid. Some elements within the state House are amenable to the idea. The state Senate has opposed the idea.
“As long as Cooper continues to fight lawmakers on so many other fronts, it seems unlikely that those same lawmakers will have much interest in taking his side in this debate.”
Read the full story here.
