The Life-Changing Program You May Have Missed
A lot has happened over the last month. Flights were canceled, benefits were delayed, and paychecks were stalled. There were elections across North Carolina and the rest of the country. The longest government shutdown in American history ended. The Dodgers won the World Series– again. And “67” was named Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year, inducing headaches and existential crises for adults across the country (myself included).
Among the flood of news, you may have missed a huge win that Gov. Josh Stein recently announced in North Carolina: A program established by former Gov. Roy Cooper successfully eliminated $6.5 billion in medical debt for over 2.5 million North Carolinians.
It’s tough to overstate how big of a deal this is. North Carolina has long had one of the highest rates of medical debt in the nation. As of 2024, as many as 3 million adults– about 1 in 4 North Carolinians– were likely carrying medical debt.
More than 8% of North Carolina consumers had an unpaid medical bill on their credit report. All this debt hasn’t just been gnawing away at North Carolinians’ finances, it’s been keeping countless families from securing mortgages, car loans, and other credit needed to help make ends meet.
That’s why it was crucial that our leaders take action. After years of advocacy, former Gov. Roy Cooper successfully expanded Medicaid in 2023, helping 600,000 North Carolinians access health insurance who couldn’t otherwise afford it.
But he didn’t stop there. Beyond expanding coverage, the Cooper administration wanted to explore reducing debt for those who may have had inadequate coverage in the past. So they developed an innovative program that encouraged health care providers to forgive medical debt across the state.
Essentially, the state offered hospitals extra Medicaid funds from Washington if they agreed to eliminate low- and middle-income patients’ debt. The goal was for the program to relieve $4 billion in medical debt.
Last month, Gov. Stein announced that the program far exceeded expectations. In 15 months, North Carolina has eliminated $6.5 billion in debt for 2.5 million people. The program didn’t plunge the state into debt. It didn’t harm hospitals. But it did change lives.
This is what effective leadership looks like– delivering meaningful results for everyday people.
It’s a stark contrast from what we’ve been seeing from Republican leadership in Washington and Raleigh. In Congress, Republicans passed legislation that simultaneously cut $1 trillion from the Medicaid system while raising health insurance premiums for millions of Americans.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the NCGA are refusing to fund NC Medicaid. We’re now the only state in the country without a comprehensive state budget, and the Republican majority has said that they will ignore Gov. Stein’s calls for them to get back to work to pass one– leaving Medicaid underfunded going into 2026.
Things have been tough this year, and the health care crisis is far from solved. But if you look around, you can still see people fighting for their neighbors, governments functioning as they should be, and leaders standing up for everyday people.
The success of the Cooper-Stein medical debt forgiveness program is just one example of that. There’s still so much to fight for, more progress to be made, many more lives to change.
Got two minutes?? If you could tell your legislators one thing about rising costs, what would it be? Let us know, and you could be featured in our latest advocacy campaign: https://carenc.org/tell-us-about-your-budget/
