March 4, 2021
The Duke-Margolis Center for Health policy at Duke University hosted a press conference today to discuss the NC Council on Health Care Coverage’s guiding principles to increase access to health care coverage in the state. Governor Roy Cooper and the Duke-Margolis Center convened the Council last year in order to bring together bipartisan state lawmakers, business leaders, health care providers, and the nonprofit community to develop principles to expand access to care and coverage for all North Carolinians and to learn from what other states have done.
The Council met four times over the last several months and the guiding principles were created as a result of small group conversations between members representing a broad range of interests across the state. Overwhelmingly, the council agreed on the need to increase affordable and comprehensive health care for as many North Carolinians as possible. The council also identified that multiple solutions would need to be developed in tandem to reach these goals. These ideas included Association Health Plans, full Medicaid expansion, targeted Medicaid expansion, and enrolling more eligible people in marketplace plans. Other ideas included reinsurance to reduce premiums for those on marketplace plans, and tax credits to incentivize small businesses to offer health insurance to their employees.
The council also discussed the need to focus on strengthening our rural communities to improve the health of those residents, reducing health disparities among marginalized populations, and increasing access to behavioral health and telehealth services. Another piece the council discussed was the need to efficiently use of state taxpayer dollars, to maximize the use of available federal dollars, and to provide program simplicity. The council emphasized that these issues existed long before COVID-19, and these principles will help to guide North Carolina to recovery and can provide access to care for more citizens moving forward.
The Council hopes these principals will act as a foundation, and can be used to guide the work for legislators and state leaders to develop a plan to increase affordable and quality health care coverage in North Carolina. The Duke-Margolis Center will continue to support this work moving forward, and will provide written updates to the council throughout the legislative session on these issues. The Duke-Margolis Center also plans to pull together small groups as needed to continue the conversation on increasing access to health care coverage in North Carolina.