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Name of Author(S): Ned Barnett Author's Title (Editor, Columnist, Etc.): Editorial Page Editor Newspaper: the New & Obser

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Name of Author(S): Ned Barnett Author's Title (Editor, Columnist, Etc.): Editorial Page Editor Newspaper: the New & Obser Name of Author(s): Ned Barnett Author’s Title (editor, columnist, etc.): Editorial page editor Newspaper: The New & Observer Address: 215 South McDowell St. City: Raleigh State: NC ZIP: 27601 Phone: 919-829-4512 Fax: 919-829-4872 E-Mail: [email protected] Submitted by: Ned Barnett Title of Person Submitting: Editorial page editor Phone Number: 919-829-4512 E-mail Address:[email protected] What is the subject/title of the entry? Ned Barnett columns on Medicaid expansion Date(s) of publication? May 10, 2015; Oct. 25, 2015, Nov. 8, 2015 Is your newspaper under 50,000 circulation or above 50,000 circulation? Above 50,000 Please give a brief explanation of issues discussed and the results achieved. (This space will expand as you type in your comments.) North Carolina has refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, depriving as many as 500,000 people of health insurance. My columns looked at the need and the savings if the state expands. So far, the legislature has refused, but pressure is growing. C M Y K [email protected] 1ST SECTION, ZONE: OPINION, STATE 17:35:55 AF Sunday, May 10, 2015 16A+ President/Publisher Editorial Page Editor Editorial Orage Quarles III; 919-829-4659; [email protected] Ned Barnett; 919-829-4512; [email protected] n e w sobserver.com/opinion Our Views Cap, gown, debt It’s time to lift the student loan burden that is stifling careers and the economy. s the Class of 2015 leaves al and private loans, putting stu- college this commencement dent loans in the same exempt cat- A season, its members will egory as criminal fines and child move on with coveted degrees and support. The answer to ensuring one unwanted distinction: They repayment of student debt isn’t are the most indebted class ever. letting some debtors be crushed College graduates this year will by it. The answer is improving un- have an average $35,051 in stu- derwriting, counseling borrowers dent debt, according to a study by and limiting the amount bor- the publisher of Edvisors.com, a rowed. college planning and financing Another step for immediate re- website. That’s about $2,000 more lief would be to make federal loans than last year, adding to an overall interest-free or extremely low in- student debt that now tops $1.3 terest. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren trillion. (D-Mass.) is a strong critic of the With 7 out of 10 graduates leav- current system in which the feder- ing college with student loans to al government is collecting bil- pay, some wonder whether the in- lions of dollars in interest – some vestment is worth the burden. For of it as high as 8.5 percent on older college graduates, it is. Research- loans – from young people who ers at Georgetown University is- sought to become better educated sued a study last week that found and fuller participants in the na- The myth of the Medicaid monster the difference between the life- tional economy. time wages of college and high A broader, long-term response ome things can be settled a vulnerable population and may rising number of people enrolled. school graduates is $1 million. is to reverse the rising cost of high- with a calculator or by scien- well head off more expensive med- The Medicaid “cost crisis” was But the payoff for taking out stu- er education. That means cutting S tific consensus, yet in politics ical costs that would inflate premi- caused by not fully funding the dent loans is hardly clear-cut. Ma- administrative bloat and having these days facts are disputed as hot- ums for everyone. state’s share of the program once ny students take on the debt but states restore cuts in funding for ly as opinions. John Alexander, Community the stimulus ended. Lawmakers don’t graduate. Others are victi- public university systems. The Arguments over what should be Care’s vice president for Medicaid budgeted an unrealistically low mized by shady for-profit schools Obama administration has tried obvious are a national phenom- financial perform- amount and told the program to that teach little but saddle stu- with mixed results to tie federal enon, but North Carolina is suffer- ance and analysis, meet that mark through savings. dents with debt. And even those aid to how well colleges and uni- ing from an especially acute case of sat in a conference But Medicaid must pay for the care who graduate from good colleges versities hold down costs. confusion over what should be eas- room last week and of everyone who qualifies. It can’t can be overcharged by private Ultimately it falls to higher ily demonstrable. is the state’s presented the reality arbitrarily cut its spending to meet lenders or fall behind in payments. education itself to wean itself Medicaid system broken or is it rel- behind the illusion. a budget target. Its cost remained They suffer damage to their credit from the easy loan money that atively effective? Did changes in the “ We f o u n d t h a t consistent, and it exceeded a bud- and find it harder to get hired or to has fed growth but also made an state tax code deliver a tax break to Comment spending on Medi- get that was set too low. buy a house or car. education increasingly unaffor- most North Carolina taxpayers or Ned caid isn’t broken, it Too troubled to expand Student debt affects more than dable. One leader in this respect are most paying more? Did the leg- Barnett isn’t unpredictable, those who owe. it’s a drag on the has been former indiana Gov. islature increase funding for public it isn’t out of con- This bit of budgetary malprac- economy. Forty million Americans Mitch Daniels, who as president schools by $1 billion or has it let trol,” he said. tice was compounded by McCro- now have at least one student loan, of Purdue University has become funding erode? indeed, he said, year-over-year ry’s lurching for political cover in up from 29 million in 2008. Younger a crusader against inflation in For today, let’s consider the spending on Medicaid is consis- 2013. The newly elected governor college graduates are saddled by higher education costs. Purdue dueling images of Medicaid, the tent, its administrative costs are didn’t want to appear opposed to debt and flat wages. is now in the middle of a three- state and federal health insurance relatively low and the cost per pa- Medicaid expansion out of anti- it’s time for action that relieves year tuition freeze and has cut program that covers 1.8 million tient is going down, falling 9 per- Obama zealotry or indifference to pressure on debtors and addresses the cost of room and board and North Carolinians, mostly chil- cent in the last four years. the uninsured. He wanted to base the causes of high debt loads. The textbooks. dren, pregnant women, the elder- Alarm about runaway Medicaid his position on fiscal prudence. At first and most direct step would be in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, ly and the disabled. Expanding expenses was triggered by shifts a January 2013 news conference, to end or modify laws that bar stu- Daniels wrote that the freeze, Medicaid under the Affordable in funding sources, not rising McCrory, Department of Health dent debt from being discharged in cuts and debt counseling for stu- Care Act would broaden eligibili- costs, Alexander said. In 2009 and and Human Services Secretary Al- bankruptcy. Student debt now dents have helped Purdue stu- ty to include nearly a half-million 2010, the federal stimulus pro- dona Wos and State Auditor Beth ranks above car loans and credit dents reduce their borrowing by more people. But the legislature gram poured extra money into Wood focused on an audit that card debt in terms of total debt and 18 percent since 2012, a savings and Gov. Pat McCrory oppose ex- state Medicaid programs to keep found high administrative costs in is second only to mortgages. Yet of $40 million. in a conclusion pansion, despite federal subsidies them solvent. That federal infu- Medicaid. McCrory and Wos said student loan debtors are denied the that should be part of every col- that would cover at least 90 per- sion allowed North Carolina to re- the program was too troubled to relief available to all others who owe lege commencement speech in cent of the cost. duce its Medicaid allocation. be expanded. much more than they can pay. 2015, Daniels wrote, “As a mat- Holding back Medicaid When the stimulus program In October 2013, Rose Hoban of The bankruptcy exemption was ter of generational fairness, and ended, state lawmakers had to NC Health News published a story added in1976 to protect taxpayers as an essential element of nation- Refusing to expand Medicaid again allocate the state’s full about what was happening behind from losses on government-issued al economic success, the burden may look reflexively anti-Obama share. That looked like a surge in the scenes. Hoban showed how student loans. The law has since of high tuition and student debt and hardhearted, but Republicans state spending as the state appro- N.C. Medicaid’s administrative been tightened to include all feder- must be alleviated, and soon.” say it’s a matter of fiscal responsi- priation climbed from $2.3 billion costs are relatively low. She also bility. They say that Medicaid’s in 2010 to $3.6 billion in 2015.
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