Health care is the main topic of debate Tuesday at the state legislature, as lawmakers plan to spend the day debating a series of issues that have been driving up costs for individuals as well as the state government.<\/p>\n
An oversight committee on the state\u2019s Department of Health and Human Services is expected to receive update on DHHS audits by Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek. DHHS falls under Democratic Gov. Josh Stein\u2019s administration, and the department has been at the center of debate over funding for public health care services.<\/p>\n
The committee has also scheduled a discussion on hospital facility fees \u2014 which some critics blame for driving up the price of surgeries. Several speakers are also slated to address access to maternal health care and child care in the state.<\/p>\n
Months-long waiting lists for child care spots are common, particularly in North Carolina\u2019s fast-growing areas. Beyond being a source of frustration and economic anxiety, it\u2019s also a concern of the state Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies for businesses that don\u2019t want to lose employees simply because they can\u2019t find child care and have to quit their jobs.<\/p>\n
Later in the day a separate oversight committee on Medicaid is scheduled to delve into several potential areas of concern for state lawmakers trying to keep costs down, including autism therapy treatments.<\/p>\n
It comes as Stein is pressing lawmakers to pay another $319 million this spring into Medicaid. The program, which provides health care for 3 million North Carolinians, is facing a shortfall due to rising costs and the lack of a new state budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health care is the main topic of debate Tuesday at the state legislature, as lawmakers plan to spend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[11277,97,252,9149,253,33204,1341,121028],"class_list":["post-515128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-child-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-care-costs","tag-healthcare","tag-josh-stein","tag-medicaid","tag-nccapitol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}