It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. People in central North Carolina continue to deal with the aftermath left behind after Tropical Storm Chantal devastated the area on Sunday, which as of right now has left three people dead. Governor Stein said during Tuesday's Council of State meeting, I want to reiterate, as everyone has, our deepest sorrow for the people who lost their lives over the weekend.
At this point, there are three deaths that have been reported in the media, one of whom is the mother of multiple individuals in Pittsburgh. Dan was a colleague of mine at the Department of Justice for eight years and is now general counsel at the Department of Environmental Quality, which is just truly heartbreaking. As well as the deaths in Texas, particularly the camp, breaks our hearts, and that just underscores that we have to be here for each other. Shortly after the Council of State meeting on Tuesday, Governor Stein traveled to Alamance and Orange counties to assess some of that damage firsthand left behind by the tropical storm. The visit included a stop at the Lake Michael Dam, where water levels on Sunday threatened to breach a spillway that was currently under construction.
The governor told reporters on scene, thank goodness that this spillway did not break. If it had, the consequences would have been absolutely devastating. Stein was joined by state and local officials, including Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson, State Senator Amy Gailey, she's the Republican out of Alamance County, Membane Mayor Ed Hooks, and Alamance County Commissioner Pamela Thompson. The group toured the area surrounding Lake Michael where residents had been evacuated Sunday night due to, again, those concerns that a temporary coffer dam might fail. The governor praised the city's proactive engineering decisions that likely led to that dam not failing, with him saying, when they were building this spillway to enhance its safety, they decided to put in an interim dam that far exceeds what anybody would reasonably consider necessary.
But thank goodness that they did. We all collectively owe our words of appreciation to the engineers and the contractors for the city of Membane. Because this was local flooding and a local flooding event, the governor has reported that a statewide state of emergency was not needed and was not signed.
However, many local states of emergencies in smaller areas do remain in effect, including counties like Alamance, Moore, Orange, and Person, where some of that flooding was the most devastating. Local emergency operations centers are still active in many of those areas, and crews were deployed to continue cleanup and recovery efforts, including restoring utilities and reopening transportation routes.
Now, on the transportation side, the Secretary of the Transportation, Joey Hopkins, was on scene with the governor on Tuesday and provided an update on the road conditions across the state. He told reporters, this historic weather event caused flooding like we haven't seen in several decades in the central part of the state. We are working. As quickly as possible to assess and reopen roads as soon as water levels recede and our crews are safely able to do so. Hopkins said that while some major roadways, including Interstate 40 and 85 in Alamance County, fortunately were reopened shortly after the storm passed through over the weekend.
There are still some 65 roads that were closed as of the governor's visit on Tuesday. He urged drivers to remain alert for debris and lingering floodwaters, especially in low-lying areas. Stein also took some time to highlight the broader community response with his visit. He told reporters, storms like this show up, show what's best about North Carolina. If people need help, the people of North Carolina will be there for their neighbors.
Will Ray, who is the director of the North Carolina Emergency Management Organization, emphasized ongoing coordination between state and local agencies. Ray saying, quote, the state emergency response team remains in close coordination with our state and local partners as we collectively navigate and assess the impacts from Tropical Storm Chantal. This is a reminder for all North Carolinians to be informed, have a plan, and have a disaster kit ready to go at home. Officials reminded residents to avoid closed areas and stay up to date through local alerts, and of course be extra cautious near creeks and flood-prone roads. Emergency management recommended enabling wireless emergency alerts or WEA alerts, WEA alerts, on smartphones to get some of those alerts, whether it is a tornado warning or a flash flood warning.
Emergency officials are also urging residents to avoid those flooded roads and walkways, heating all barricades and warning signs, and continuing to follow local weather updates. The governor said, our hearts go out to the families who lost a loved one during the storm. I am grateful to the local and state emergency responders who worked quickly to evacuate people and keep so many people safe. As counties across central North Carolina continue to recover, we will be there to support them. With this, I think it's an important note to remember that the Atlantic hurricane season runs all the way until the end of November, and it is not just the coastal areas that need to be cognizant of some of the uh powerful uh uh Destruction and some of the powerful nature of these storms as we're talking about the central portion of the state dealing with some of this historic flooding from what many would describe as a run-of-the-mill tropical storm, and in many areas was nothing more than just some wind and rain.
However, causing some of this incredible devastation in the central part of the state. With that, Governor Josh Stein is also discussing about financial relief for these storms. The governor said that even though the state continues to deal with the effects of Hurricane Helene in the western half of North Carolina, causing billions of dollars of damage, he did tell the Council of State Tuesday that there would be enough money to repair the roads, bridges, and other damage caused by this tropical storm, despite that large amount of money that is already being allocated for the western half of the state. The governor also. Said part of the reason why I wanted to go out there is to understand the extent of the infrastructural damage to water and wastewater systems and roads, and really to see how extensive the damage is.
I've talked to a couple of the sheriffs over the weekend, and they were saying that there were some communities essentially disconnected from the roadways.
So, part of what we have to do at this point is to just assess what is the scale of damage and what we can do to help people recover. We will continue to track the details on this storm, the recovery and cleanup efforts. Again, unfortunately, this early season storm, Tropical Storm Chantal, leaving three people dead in North Carolina, causing the Haw River to crest at 32.5 feet, as well as some other rivers in that area to crest at 25 feet, leaving some historic and record-breaking flooding throughout the central portions of North Carolina. We'll continue the coverage over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and of course, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 520.
Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110, 993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Some North Carolina residents will have two more years to renew their expired driver's license under a brand new state law. Senate Bill 391 became effective back on July the 1st when Governor Josh Stein signed it into law.
It establishes a temporary moratorium on the expiration of standard passenger vehicle driver's licenses in North Carolina. As the law reads and is in effect, customers are allowed to present an expired Class C driver's license for in state driving privileges only if the expiration date is july the first, twenty twenty five or later. The moratorium is in effect through December 31st, 2027, and applies only to Class C licenses. That's what is used for a standard passenger vehicle, which allows continued in-state driving privileges during that time. It is important to note that those expired licenses won't be valid for any purposes other than establishing a license's holder's driver privileges, including identification purposes for air travel and may not be recognized by other state or federal entities.
The moratorium does not apply to commercial driver's licenses or any licenses that are suspended, revoked, or canceled. Paul Tyne, the commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles, said, quote, we advise our customers to renew their licenses to ensure they remain valid for identification purposes, including to fly, rent a car, get a bank loan, fill a prescription, and have documents notarized. Of this bill comes after the Transportation Security Administration's requirement for the use of real ID when boarding a flight. That happened back in May of this year. That caused some big-time delays and backlogs at many DMV offices across the state.
There was a period in time earlier this year where there was not a single DMV appointment available at a single office anywhere across the state of North Carolina. The DMV has been a frustration for quite some time, not only for lawmakers, but residents of our great state that has prompted this legislation, Senate Bill 391, to move its way through the North Carolina General Assembly and its way to Governor Josh Stein's desk as the DMV. Continues to assess its processes and systems to try and deal with the backlog and the increase in individuals trying to not only renew but get a new real ID issued. This will allow individuals whose driver's licenses are set to expire any time after July 1st of this year to continue driving for up to two years. Again, not valid for any other sort of identification purposes.
We'll have additional details on this story over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, where it's now 523, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. With the passage and signing of President Trump's one big beautiful bill last week, there's been a lot of discussion about expansion in Medicaid here across the state of North Carolina. You'll remember back just a few short years ago after a decade of Republicans fighting against Medicaid expansion that they did go forward with that.
So to talk about the impacts that could be felt here across the state, Brian Balfour with the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Brian, you've probably heard the same conversation and some of the same news reports as everybody else. What exactly is going to go on here in North Carolina as we understand it right now with some of these changes to Medicaid out of the federal level? Yeah, so my best understanding is with this big bill that was passed and the impact on Medicaid, that potentially could eliminate the expansion population here in North Carolina. Roughly about 660,000 people have signed up under the expansion rules in the last year and a half.
And kind of not to get too technical or into the weeds, but basically, North Carolina was paying for the expansion population with a new hospital tax, provider tax on hospitals. And this federal bill actually places a cap on the amount of tax that states can levy on their hospital providers, which in turn then would hamstring North Carolina's ability to raise enough funds for the expansion population. And in the bill, a couple, two, three years ago, when North Carolina expanded Medicaid, there was a provision in there that said if this hospital provider tax at some point should prove insufficient to provide enough funding. Funding for the expansion population, then they would have to terminate the expansion program altogether. And there's the speculation that that will be the case once these federal limits to the provider tax go into place.
Now, Brian, you talk about some 660,000-plus individuals that have been added to the North Carolina Medicaid system over the last couple of years. If some of those provider taxes go down, as you laid out and is laid out in this big, beautiful bill signed by President Trump on July the 4th, I mean, what could we be looking at? Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deficits as it relates to the Medicaid program? I mean, is that something even feasible that the state government could pick up the difference on? Yeah, it would actually, it's tough to say, but yeah, hundreds of millions probably for the state share, potentially billions that would be no longer flowing to North Carolina hospitals with the cancellation of a certain federal program that was set up at the time of Medicaid expansion.
So it would have a pretty significant impact. I mean, up till now, North Carolina has really been insulated from the costs, even from the 10% share, the state share of the cost of Medicaid expansion. Again, we've been assessing this hospital provider tax, but that was in concert with the federal program that reimbursed North Carolina hospitals to the tunes of billions.
So actually, it really was not costing North Carolina or even North Carolina hospitals any money for the expansion population. I saw an interesting post on your X account back a couple of days ago as this process was unfolding in Washington, D.C. And you made the tongue-in-cheek point that, you know, we decided to cozy up to the federal government, who's currently $36, $37 trillion in debt, and assume that this money would continue flowing.
However, the wins in Washington, D.C. have changed, Brian, new leadership, not only in the White House, but in the House and the Senate. That money may no longer be there. And it's unfortunate. I think many folks would claim it's unfortunate that Republicans in the General Assembly went forward with this a couple of years ago, knowing that long-term that money may not be there.
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's why they stuck those provisions in the bill kind of as a fail-safe to if those federal funds ever start to dry up, which we're starting to see already, just a year and a half after expansion. But now becomes the very difficult political decision is with North Carolina legislators, are they prepared to allow 660,000 people to fall off the Medicaid rolls and lose their health insurance coverage? Oh, and I'm glad you bring up that point. I mean, you talk about the poison pill in politics and the things that politicians don't want to do because of the negative press. Brian, I can close my eyes right now and see the headlines all over the state of North Carolina, Republicans cut health care from 600 plus thousand individuals.
Almost seems like a little bit of political suicide. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I hate to say I told you so, but we were warning legislators for years and years. I mean, it's kind of foolhardy to rely on a federal government that's $36,000, $37 trillion in debt to pay for billions of dollars worth of Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands of people. And we saw the trend over the years from other states, that the costs and the enrollment in the Medicaid expansion populations just consistently was above projections and expectations.
We've already seen in a year and a half 660,000 here in North Carolina, early projections right before we passed the bill. We're kind of topping out at like 600,000, so we're already exceeding that by like 10% enrollment-wise.
So it just. Proves to be unsustainable, just both because you're relying on a federal government that's the most indebted institution in the history of the planet, and relying on projections that typically fall short of how much is actually going to end up costing. We'll continue the discussion with Brian Balfour of the John Locke Foundation coming up after this. You're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. Yeah.
It's 5:36. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993WBT. Veteran Democrat lawmaker Michael Ray has officially announced a bid to reclaim his long-held seat in the North Carolina House, setting up the stage for a high-stakes rematch in the House District 27 after a narrow loss in the March 2024 Democrat primary. Ray, a businessman from Gaston, representing Halifax, Northampton, and Warren counties for more than two decades before narrowly losing the Democrat primary in 2024 to progressive candidate Rodney Pierce by fewer than 25 votes. The result brought disputes and recounts with Ray formally, formal election, bringing forth some formal election challenges, ultimately dismissed by all three candidates.
County Board of Elections. Ray said in a statement earlier this week announcing his campaign: This campaign is about standing up for the people in our district. It's about results, not about rhetoric. Also in his statement, Ray highlighted his legislative record, citing more than $200 million in state funding secured for local governments and nonprofits in the region. He emphasized his role in the General Assembly's passage of Medicaid expansion, which of course we've been talking about this morning, which added more than 650,000 people to the federal entitlement program in North Carolina.
While serving in the legislature, Ray had a reputation as a moderate Democrat, willing to work across the aisle, something that drew bipartisan respect and criticism from progressive challengers. In 2024, Ray was one of three Democrats who voted in favor of Senate Bill 10, which provided funding for more than 55,000 families on the waiting list for the Opportunity Scholarship Program. The other two Democrats supporting the school choice legislation were Representatives Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County and Shelly. Willingham of Edgecombe County. Additionally, Ray, William, and Cunningham joined Republicans in voting to override former governor's veto of House Bill 808, which prohibited the use of state funds for sex change treatments for minors.
Ray said in a press release, I'm not going to apologize for working in the back rooms of the state legislature to make sure that our region gets money from the state budget.
Meanwhile, my opponent hasn't passed a single bill or gotten a single penny for our district. Ray, who operates an insurance agency and a set of hardware stores, also has business interests in timber and farming. Ray's comeback bid follows a contentious post-election period. After his razor-thin loss in the March primary in 2024, he filed a formal election protest alleging irregularities and seeking a recount. The recount was triggered, but all three local Board of Elections in Halifax, Northampton, and Warren counties unanimously rejected his challenge, finding no evidence of fraud or significant error.
Representative Pierce, who currently holds the seat, is a private school teacher who has gained grassroots support, particularly among progressive activists. According to the North Carolina State Board of Elections, the official candidate filing period for these elections are December the 1st through December the 19th, with a primary election scheduled coming up.
So that is going to be one of the many high-stakes races that we're going to be tracking as we head through the next couple of years and watch the General Assembly power shift. This election will take place in the primary will take place in March of 2026, the general election November of 2026. You can read more on former Representative lawmaker Michael Ray over on our website this morning at CarolinaJournal.com, where it's now 540, News Talk 1110, 993, WBT. Continuing our discussion with Brian Balfour of the John Locke Foundation about the big, beautiful bill out of Washington DC and some of its impacts on Medicaid expansion here across the state of North Carolina. Maybe it's important to take a couple of more steps back to how we got here.
Republicans, for the longest time, for the better part of a decade, actively worked against Medicaid expansion. It was one of the things that Governor Roy Cooper wanted day one when he got into office. Republicans held off a long time on doing that.
However, Brian, they did decide back a couple of years to do so once that federal match and federal split looked, I guess, more and more lucrative for the state of North Carolina. Yeah, yeah, and there were extra federal sweeteners thrown in as well at the time. We were just kind of coming out of COVID, so there was a. Billions and billions and trillions of dollars flowing from the federal government, and part of that was sweeteners for holdouts like North Carolina, who had yet to expand Medicaid. They threw temporarily in the first couple of years, North Carolina received billions of extra dollars to help elsewhere in our budgetary issues if we were to expand Medicaid.
So I think just the temptation of the federal dollars just proved to be too much. Let's talk about these rural hospitals. This seems to be a big talking point, especially on social media. And I've seen a lot of it here in North Carolina. Brian, that rural hospitals could be facing potentially having to close their doors due to some of these changes to Medicaid.
Have you had an opportunity to assess the practicality of that? Yeah, yeah. And I wrote about this a handful of years back, even because it was being discussed back when North Carolina was still holding off on expanding Medicaid and saying, well, we need to expand Medicaid to save these rural hospitals. And I started doing some digging, and the closure of rural hospitals was not a new phenomenon. It's been taking place over the course of decades.
If anything, the rate of rural hospital closures had been slowing down a bit relative to the 1990s, early 2000s. And so, Medicaid expansion is no silver bullet to save it. Rural counties are losing population. The old large rural county hospital is based off a post-World War II kind of model. It's just outdated.
It's inefficient. And so I think rural counties need to be better served by a better business model for medical care. that's more in tune with the local populations than this old outdated model that Medicaid expansion at best is just going to kind of paper over it temporarily and prop up these inefficient models of service. Throughout this legislative session, we have talked many a times about certificate of need or con law. That's been a big discussion out of the General Assembly.
Can you give us a brief overview of that and maybe something like that helps more of these rural hospitals, or as you note, more of these innovative health centers coming to areas of the state that are not, in fact, in large population centers? Yeah, and that's such a great point. Certificate of need laws, of course, for those who are not familiar, are basically a requirement by the state imposed on medical care providers if they want to expand their facilities, build new facilities, acquire certain equipment and technology to help treat patients. And it really serves to limit the supply of health care and medical care across the state. And so that's really harming.
We see health care shortages around the state, in particular, in rural areas. And rural areas would be better, far better served, in my opinion, if we could scrap these certificate of need laws and they had a lot more freedom and even individual providers could open up smaller clinics and serve their local communities. But as long as those certificate of need laws remain in place, it's going to be very, very difficult for these rural communities to adapt to the new realities in their counties. What do we think about a timeline on all of this? The bill passed last week.
Obviously, things don't immediately happen when legislation, at least of this magnitude, passes. When do you presume that we'll start figuring out whether there's going to have to be some significant changes to the North Carolina Medicaid plan? Is that weeks, months, years away? What's the timeline as you understand it? Yeah, it's definitely going to take a little time to sort through.
My understanding is that the cap on the hospital provider tax is kind of a phase down over time, over a number of years. you know, likely gives North Carolina a little bit of time to Kind of, you know, just assess the facts on the ground, see how our state is going to be impacted by these Medicaid changes, and adjust accordingly. I mean, again, there's a very difficult political decision. Are we just going to abide by the original Medicaid expansion bill and just cut off the expansion program completely because we're unable to raise the funds? Or are we going to search for other revenue sources to try to help finance the expansion population?
So it's probably going to unfold over the course of the next few years, but I think some decisions probably are going to need to be made much more quickly than that, hopefully, even later this year, if possible. A lot of great information this morning. We appreciate it. Brian Balfour of the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Ah.
Good morning again. It's 5:52. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. News Talk 11:10, 99.3 WBT, Governor Josh Stein said that he and the legislature are going to have to get creative to keep the Medicaid expansion population on the program's rolls.
Now that President Donald Trump's one big beautiful bill was officially signed into law last week, new work requirements and a provider tax cap in the bill will effectively end Medicaid expansion in the state or create a $32 billion budget hole over the next decade. After a Council of State meeting on Tuesday, the governor told reporters that the new federal law poses risks to the healthcare system across North Carolina. The state's Medicaid expansion program was signed into law in 2023 after passing the Republican-led General Assembly. It added more than 65,000 able-bodied childrenless working-age adults to the federal entitlement program. The governor said after the Council of State meeting, whether they're on Medicaid now or they participate in the exchanges, there is a real concern that about 660,000 people who now have Medicaid through expansion and the bipartisan effort and the hard work done by both parties to make sure that's happened and as a result, people are healthier.
There are many more health care providers in rural counties and rural hospitals, many of which have been struggling to have been solidified. All of that is at risk. There is no question that the federal government is just dumping expenses onto the state, whether it's health care or whether it's SNAP benefits. And what we have to do as a state is to make sure that we do not abandon our people the way that the federal government is abandoning our people. A press release from U.S.
Senator Tom Tillis back on June the 28th, after he said he wouldn't be voting for the bill, included an eight-page report on the fiscal impact of the Senate's proposed Medicaid policy in North Carolina. According to the data provided by the North Carolina General Assembly's Fiscal Research Division, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the North Carolina Medicaid Program, and the North Carolina Healthcare Association, it indicates that the state budget and hospitals would experience an estimated $32 billion impact over the next 10 years. The state would be on the hook for either raising taxes to make up for the lost funding or possibly eliminating coverage for some 673,000 individuals currently enrolled in the state with Medicaid expansion. New work requirements of at least 80 hours a month and a 3.5 percent provider tax cap that would eliminate all or most of the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program, that's HASP, which was a system of state-directed payments to hospitals, will effectively end Medicaid expansion in the state. The Department of Health and Human Services also warned of what would happen to Medicaid expansion and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also called SNAP, with reporters last week as well.
Stein told the group that now that the bill has passed, the state has to be exceptionally conservative in a fiscal nature by preserving its revenue sources so that it can deal with federal funding changes for tax-paid entitlement programs. Stein told reporters, quote, so we will absolutely be engaging with the leadership to encourage them to be fiscally prudent. But Stein didn't tell reporters that Senate leader Phil Berger, the Republican out of Rockingham County, has said that the state will be able to adapt to whatever Congress passes and that he looks forward to working with the legislature to protect the state's people. The governor also called for a budget to be passed by the General Assembly. This is both the House and the Senate are currently on summer break.
They did that before passing one for the new fiscal year. They are expected to be back in Raleigh. Coming up here in just a few weeks, as some of the details are rolling out this morning, it seems like the week of the 28th of July is when those lawmakers will be back from their summer break. Lots on the calendar, 11 veto overrides, potentially dealing with the budget.
Now, Medicaid expansion, a lot that is going to be on their agenda as we head into the deeper summer months. We will be keeping an eye on all of those details right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, and of course, on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
Well, that's going to do it for a Wednesday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 11.10 and 99.3, WBT.
