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Voucher Data Examined; Sports Betting

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig
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July 16, 2026 6:20 am

Voucher Data Examined; Sports Betting

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig

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July 16, 2026 6:20 am

A new analysis from Carolina Journal shows that elite private schools across North Carolina take little opportunity scholarship dollars, while predominantly lower-cost religious schools receive the largest share of funds. The state budget also expands sports betting and prediction markets, with a 5% increase on gross wagering revenue taxes and a 6% tax on net trading in prediction markets. A federal lawsuit is filed against the Gaston County School Board over a teacher's social media post after Charlie Kirk's assassination, raising questions about First Amendment rights and public vs. private conduct.

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It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Thursday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. There has been a lot of discussion in recent years in the state of North Carolina as it relates to the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Over the last couple of years, lawmakers in Raleigh expanding that program, which putting North Carolina on the map for one of the most expansive school choice programs anywhere in the nation. A new analysis from Carolina Journal shows that elite private schools across the state take little opportunity scholarship dollars.

The most exclusive and expensive private schools in North Carolina receive little or no money from the OSP voucher program, while the program's largest recipients are predominantly lower-cost religious schools, according to this analysis of the state's disbursement data. Of the more than 703 schools that received scholarship funds in the 25-26 school year, several of the state's best-known private academies do not appear at all. To list off a couple, Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, Cary Academy, Charlotte Latin, the Providence Day School in Charlotte, Durham Academy, Greensboro Day, Charlotte Country Day, the Carolina Day School in Asheville, and Asheville School received no voucher money. Those schools are among the most expensive in the state. For example, the high school tuition rate for Durham Academy lands at a whopping $37,500, while Ravenscroft charges $34,000, Charlotte Latin $36,500, and Providence Day a $36,325.

For at least one of these schools, staying out of the expanded program in North Carolina is a deliberate choice. According to the Ravenscroft School on their website, they say that they do not participate in the program because, quote, it imposes a series of rules and regulations that have the potential for the state to dictate future policies and programming. That oversight, the Raleigh School says, would compromise its independence as a private institution.

Some of the schools receiving the top amount of dollars through the voucher programs include The North Raleigh Christian Academy, which received more than $6.3 million in the 25-26 school year. The Metro Lina Christian Academy in Indian Trail, $5.9 million there. Grace Christian School in Sanford, $5.8 million. Concord Academy in Concord, $5 million. And the Liberty Christian Academy in Richlands, receiving $4.4 million for the 25-26 school year.

The pattern complicates a common line of criticism. Senate minority leader Sidney Batch, the Democrat from Wake County, argued in June in a profanity-laced video published to social media that Republicans were giving $250 blanking million dollars a year to private schools so that rich kids could be taught history with our blanking tax dollars. The disbursement data shows that the state's most expensive academies are in fact drawing none. of the money in which she claims. The data does not track the income of families at the schools that they do participate in.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program awarded roughly $589 million to more than 107,000 students this year. This is according to the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority, which is the entity in North Carolina that is responsible for administering the program. Enrollment roughly tripled after the General Assembly removed the program's income limits back a couple of years ago in 2023, with the maximum award being $7,600 for students in lower-income households with the new sliding scale model that is in place. Carolina Journal ranked the 100 schools that received the most scholarship money in the twenty five twenty six school year and reviewed each school's religious affiliation and published tuition. More than eighty of the one hundred top schools are religious schools.

Most of the rest are campuses of A group called Thales Academy, a secular chain that charges about $7,000 a year. The others are mostly college preparatory day schools and schools serving students with disabilities. Carolina Journal found published tuition rates for 89 of the 100 top schools. Among the 89, the median tuition is about $7,900 a year. Roughly two-thirds charge less than the $11,000,500 number that North Carolina spends per pupil for state and local funds in the 24-25 school year in the public school system.

That data, according to the Department of Public Instruction. And about three-quarters of the schools charge less than $13,000 spent per pupil, counting federal money as well. At roughly 40% of the schools, a full scholarship covers the entire tuition bill. The tuition figure reflects each school's published rate for its highest grade level, drawn from the school's website, where available, and third-party listings otherwise. The higher-priced schools that do not participate generally rank lower on the list.

Cannon School in Concord rakes 118th in scholarship dollars received. The Forsyth Country Day School near Winston-Salem ranks 131st. And the two highest-cost secular academies in the top 100, Cape Fear Academy in Wilmington and Fayetteville Academy, rank 88th and 99th in the program in terms of receiving those opportunity scholarship dollars. The pattern holds across the entire program. Not only the largest participants of all the scholarship money awarded in the 25-26 school year, about 78% of that money went to religious schools.

A Carolina Journal classification of the disbursement data found. Protestant Christian schools alone accounted for at least 64% of the funds, and Catholic schools another 11%. The schools in the secular minority are largely not elite academies either. The largest are the 11 North Carolina campuses, as I've already mentioned, of a group called the Thales Academy Chain. nine of which rank among the program's 100 biggest recipients, followed by other micro school programs and other schools serving students with disabilities.

Among the established college prep or college preparatory day schools that do participate, including the Cannon School, Forsyth County Day, and Cape Fear Academy, each received under $1.9 million in the most recent school year. The concentration of public money at religious schools is settled law. In a case called Carson v. Mackin from 2022, the United States Supreme Court ruled that states running tuition assistance programs cannot exclude schools simply because they are religious, building on a 2020 decision called Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue.

The composition of the program has shifted since the income limits were removed. Among the top 100 schools, total scholarship dollars grew roughly fivefold between 2022 and 2023, the last year before the program became available to all families, according to Carolina Journal analysis. Several Catholic and college prep schools grew faster than others and others in the program. St. Gabriel Catholic School in Charlotte went from about $36,000 in scholarship funds in the 22-23 school year to $1.9 million this year, where Charlotte's Catholic high school total grew about 24-fold.

Five schools that received no scholarship money in 2022-2023 now rank among the 100 largest recipients. They include some of the more expensive schools on the list, including the Charlotte Christian School, where tuition exceeds $27,000 and the Caldwell Academy in Greensboro, which costs roughly $19,000. Lower cost schools can still take in the largest share of the money, schools charging less than the $11,569 the state spends per pupil received about 55% of all scholarship dollars in the 25-26 school year. And roughly the same share of growth since the 22-23 school year, in part because they make up of most of the recipients. Heather Koons, a research and communication director for Public Schools FirstNC, which opposes the program's expansion, has argued the shift of benefits to wealthier families.

She recently told CBS 17 in Raleigh, I think our state is now subsidizing wealthy families to go to private school.

Some private schools have been clearly increasing their tuition as the voucher program becomes more available. By the accounting from the group that is responsible for operating the Opportunity Scholarship Program in North Carolina, families in the two lowest of the four income tiers receive about two-thirds of the scholarship dollars just this year. The highest income tier, which has no limit at all, accounted for about 17% of recipients, which rolled out to about 11% of the funds in total. The state budget passed by lawmakers in early July continues to grow the Opportunity Scholarship Program, turning back a push by Governor Josh Stein and Democrat lawmakers in Raleigh to freeze and eventually shrink the program. The Republican-led General Assembly declined to adopt either of the Democrat approaches.

Stein proposed a moratorium, which would have imposed an income cap near $90,000 for a family of four, which Carolina Journal reported would have removed an estimated 60,000 recipients. Another bill sponsored by four House Democrats would have cut nearly $400 million over two years and redirected it to child care. Instead, the final spending plan keeps the statutory schedule that lifts the program's annual appropriations towards $825 million by 2032. The budget also reinvests nearly $36 million into public schools, an amount equal to the savings the state realized over the past two years when students left public schools for private ones using vouchers worth less than the state spends in terms of its per-pupil allotment in schools. A DPI report found that the state spent $34.3 million on scholarship for students who left public schools in the 24-25 school year, roughly $10 million less than it would have spent educating them throughout the public school system.

We've got a lot of numbers, a couple of charts and graphs as Carolina Journal conducted this analysis, this very extensive analysis, our colleague David Bass of the Opportunity Scholarship Program. You can find those details by heading on over to our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. Look for the story with the headline, NC Elite Private Schools Take Little Opportunity Scholarship Money. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe.

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Save up to 30% with promo code news at lifelock.com. Terms apply. It's 5:21. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. Continuing our comprehensive discussions of the North Carolina state budget recently approved by the North Carolina legislature, then signed into law by Democrat Governor Josh Stein, we are going to dive a little bit deeper into sports betting and prediction markets.

Those are two of the issues and items making their way out of the state budget. To walk us through some of those details this morning, Andrew Pomerantz, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Andrew, it's been a couple of years since legalized electronic sports betting has been in the state of North Carolina. There was a lot of fanfare when that was approved back in 2024. It looks like those sports companies, the DraftKings, the fan duels, the ones that folks see all the commercials for, it looks like they're about to be paying a little bit more in state taxes.

Yeah, hey, Nick, good morning. Thank you for having me on. Yep.

So, as you mentioned, back in March of 2024, we legalized sports betting here in North Carolina. And when we did, we came in at an 18% tax rate on those sports bets, on total waging revenues, right? And so, for the past couple of years, the state has pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from sports betting. And as we become more and more engrossed in the state of North Carolina here with sports betting, the state legislature in this budget, right, just over 700 pages passed here about two weeks ago now, incorporated a 5% increase on gross wagering revenue taxes. And so, fiscal research said.

Proposes that this will add about $55 million in additional tax revenue coming from sports gambling over the next year. And so, quite a big increase there, but just a slight increase here from 18 to 23%. And something that most bettors won't actually feel to be more focused on sports books themselves. Yeah, no change there for those that are taking place and using these apps, but a pretty hefty tax, which is, I'll be honest, in line with most of the other states across the United States that have gone through the process of legalized immobile sports wagering like we have here in North Carolina. Another interesting thing, as well, is that they're adding two of North Carolina's most prominent schools to groups that will be getting money as part of this 23% tax of gross wagering here in North Carolina.

Chapel Hill and NC State, they were originally left out of some of the funding from this when it was approved back in 2024. I guess they're being pulled into the mix now as well. Yeah, so for the past two years now, a number of schools across North Carolina are receiving about $2.5 million each from sports betting revenue to going towards their athletic programs. This budget adds NC State and UNC Travel Hill and also gives each school about a Half a million dollar pay raise. And so each school is now projected to receive around $3 million under the new formula with some exceptions in there.

Schools that have football bowl subdivision programs, so think about those little bit larger football programs: App State, East Carolina, NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, and UNC Charlotte will be eligible for an additional $2.5 million per school. And that's the idea there is to continue to allow Carolina universities with those big athletic programs to thrive in what is becoming such a competitive athletic environment, we all know with NIL and the continued growth in college athletics. And so additional funds coming for both NC State and UNC Chapel Hill, but additional raises across the board for Carolina athletics, no matter what university we're talking about. Yeah, and we'll continue to watch as that money is spent with those schools. One of the other things interesting as we talk about some of the taxes on wagering here.

Here in North Carolina, the Tar Heel State, Andrew, now the first in the nation to create a framework for taxing on prediction markets. Folks have probably seen Instagram or other social media ads for popular websites like Polymarket and Caul Shi. Both of those services now would be facing a 6% tax on net trading in North Carolina. Puts us first in the nation to move forward with something like this. What are you hearing as a reaction to that?

Yeah, this particular piece of the budget got a lot of attention just because North Carolina, like you have mentioned, is the first state in the country to have some sort of tax on these types of markets. A lot of states have been waiting on federal regulations and federal decisions on how they wanted to treat. Prediction markets like Polymarket when it came to tax revenues. But North Carolina here and Senator Berger, Senator Berger and Speaker Hall both came out and said, you know, that. Prediction markets are here.

They're here to stay and they're growing and something that they needed to address now. And Senator Berger on the Senate floor said it's pretty clear that's something that seems to be growing, both in popularity in terms of recognition, whether it's something that eventually is going to take over for sports betting. He was unaware, but something that he felt like had to be handled now before it grew too large. And so 6% tax. on these platforms.

It's a much smaller pool of revenue to pull from. And that tax is much lower, has drawn a lot of scrutiny from Democrats because of that lower tax and a lot of questions around whether sports books could look to maybe reshape some of their programs to fall back into this prediction market. And so a more Push and pull piece of the budget here, um, but another step forward for North Carolina in terms of gambling and the overall prediction markets. Yeah, and while many of these prediction websites do offer a wagering on sports, at least in some way, shape, or form, really what's interesting about this is all of the other things, Andrew, that you can place some wagering on. Whether it's weather forecasts, is it going to be cloudy or sunny?

What the high temperature is going to be, who's going to win a political election, are there going to be more bombs falling in Iran? I mean, you can literally go on a couple of these prediction market websites and wager on almost anything. It's pretty remarkable. And there's serious concern here for Governor Stein about those types of predictions, right? And so earlier this year, he put out an executive order banning all state employees from gambling or participating in these markets as an attempt to not allow state employees to use potentially insider information to gain an edge here.

We hear about it all the time, whether that be for national security reasons or just financial reasons. concerns being raised about these markets in that way. But as you as you mentioned, they are continuing to grow. Popularity for platforms like this is not going away. And so I think it's something that the state looked as at as an opportunity to go ahead and regulate now before the federal government comes out and says what they want to do and get ahead of that curve.

Looking at some of the commentary from House Speaker Destin Hall and kind of maybe responding back to some of the criticism that this 6% tax on these prediction markets is so much lower than the 23% on these sports wagering operators here in North Carolina. He seems to indicate that maybe this is just the first step. They're maybe dipping their toe in the water to see exactly what this is going to look like. And if it's something that the state can potentially generate millions of dollars on in the years to come, it seems like that's something that could continue to increase. Absolutely.

And I mean, there was great pushback here from both inside the state of North Carolina and outside the state of North Carolina. Mick Mulvaney, who's the executive director of Gambling is not investing. He's also the former White House chief of staff for President Trump. Talks a lot about how this is legitimizing unlicensed sports gambling apps, right? Because you can still do some sports gamblings on these platforms.

And so I think that as we move forward, we'll see regulations become tighter and tighter on these sports. Betting platforms and predictive markets as they try to understand what actually is happening here and what's the best way to regulate them. Yeah, it's a very important piece of our state budget, more than $34.4 billion. You can read more details on sports betting, what some of those taxes look like, and these new additions to the prediction markets. Those details are available this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.

We appreciate the update. Andrew Pomerantz joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh no. That's why Lifelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own.

If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 30% with promo code News at Lifelock.com. Terms apply. It's 5.37.

Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good Wednesday morning to you. Thursday morning to you. Last September, a really horrific situation unfolding out West where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated in broad daylight out doing part of his college tour across the United States of America. There has been a lot of fallout, a lot of reaction since that early September date last year.

We have continued to follow some of the ramifications here in North Carolina. This morning, we're tracking a new federal lawsuit. A teacher here in North Carolina, federal lawsuit against the school district in which she works, against dealing with some social media posts that were put out in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination. To walk through some of those details this morning, Mitch Coke from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, pretty disturbing to see what a lot of folks were saying in the immediate aftermath of this horrific video that made its way all throughout the country and throughout the world.

A lot of folks dealing with issues with their employers as the result of some of the mean and nasty comments they were making online. take us to this situation unfolding in Gaston County. Yes, and the comment at the heart of this case would be one that would disturb a lot of people. What happened was this teacher, Holly Ackerman, in the Gaston County school system. She was a special ed teacher at a school called Webb Street that deals with students that have moderate to severe disabilities.

She was working at the school. goes home after work Fires up Facebook. A friend of hers had posted a news article about Charlie Kirk's assassination and had a comment. From Kirk above the article, talking about how there's one of the things that helps justify the Second Amendment is occasional killings. And the response from this Teacher Holly Ackerman was to write, I can't believe anyone is mourning for this.

D-bag, basically, although she used the full term. And she thought that that comment was only to her acquaintance or perhaps to her other friends. But within minutes, someone had screenshotted that and was shared widely on social media. Gaston County Schools got a lot of calls and emails from people saying you should fire this woman. She says, in the course of this federal lawsuit that's now filed against the Gaston School Board and the superintendent that none of her students, none of the parents, none of her colleagues called for her to be fired.

It was only people outside, including many people from outside of not only Gaston County, but outside of North Carolina. But anyway, what happened was within a day, She was suspended with pay. Not too long afterward, the superintendent said that her comments were disruptive and hurt the ability of the school system to do its job in a normal way.

So he suspended her without pay and recommended that she be fired. The Gaston School Board held a hearing and agreed with the recommendation and fired her. And now she's filing suit, basically saying that the dismissal was based entirely on private conduct on her private Facebook page, not having anything to do with her work, and that that is a violation of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. And that's what's been so interesting, not only dealing with this situation as it relates to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but so many other things, Mitch, that have taken place over the last 10 or 15 years. I saw just this week, what, 20 years ago, Twitter first came online as a website.

We've seen social media really take over, in many cases, as the public square as it used to be known. This has been an interesting, tricky thing to deal with legally with individuals making comments on social media. Most of the time, those comments publicly available and then being held to account at their employers, some working for private entities, obviously, which have much broader authority here in North Carolina as a right-to-work state versus a state or local government. But it's been an interesting thing for the legal system to determine and deal with over the last 10 or 15 years. It really has.

And it will be interesting to see whether there is any distinction made in this case between something that would have happened at school. Like if she was at school, someone said something about Charlie Kirk and she made a disparaging comment in front of a class or in front of fellow workers. or if she was on her Facebook account, but it was happening at school, during school hours. All of this conduct that she had took place on her private Facebook account at home after school. As the complaint suggests, she did not think the comments were publicly available, but thought they were only being shared with her at least the person who had sent her the article, and perhaps beyond that, her Facebook friends.

She also notes in the complaint that. None of her Colleagues and none of her students or their parents are her Facebook friends.

So it's not as if this is something that she's trying to share with the school community. It will be interesting to see whether there is a distinction. Between conduct of that sort and conduct that takes place in the course of the school day.

Now, of course, Once the comment became public, then the the reaction is is from the public to what she said. But it will be interesting to see whether the fact that she made this comment in what she thought was a private or not quite public setting. Makes a distinction between that conduct and something that would have happened on the school grounds, because I think certainly. If she had made this comment in class, probably does not have any kind of First Amendment protection, or even making the comment to colleagues on the public school property, probably does not get the First Amendment protection. Maybe she does in this case.

It will be very interesting to see what the federal case provides on that. The other thing is that we've not yet seen the reaction from the Gaston County schools.

Now, what the lawsuit is saying from Holly Ackerman is that she was fired because of this comment that was made on her personal Facebook page. The lawsuit, though, also admits that what the superintendent said was that her comments. Were disruptive and made it hard for the schools to operate in their normal way. what you the sense that you get is that once The comments were put into the public square that there were lots of emails, lots of phone calls to Gaston County schools complaining about this teacher and saying you need to get rid of her. Sure.

That seems to be what the schools are saying is the reason why they needed to dismiss her. Not necessarily the comment itself or even the forum, but the fact that once it did become public, it became a distraction from the schools being able to do what they need to do to educate students. And Mitch, that's another one of the things as we've continued to watch the rise of social media that has been so interesting to follow. This very gray area that exists now as to when you're operating in your official capacity with folks being online and being connected 24-7, there's a lot of discussion over, okay, well, just because you weren't in the school and just because you weren't doing it on school hours, these operations are still taking place. You have listed on your social media who your employer is.

There's some level of reflection there. Again, even though social media has been relatively relevant now for the last 15 plus years, a lot of these things are still shaking out in the court system. As many in our audience are probably well aware, with technology changes, government and the judicial system tends to be pretty slow with how to deal with some of this stuff because it's all brand new and largely things that we haven't dealt with in the past. Yes, I think we're seeing lots of cases address these issues now.

Now, you mentioned the idea that your affiliation with the school system would be listed on your social media account. For many of this is true. Many of us, that is true. Our jobs are listed. I don't know if that's the case in this situation.

It's described in the lawsuit that it was a private. Facebook account. And as I said earlier, uh the the Plaintiff Holly Ackerman says that. None of her Facebook friends were Students at the school, parents of the students, or even her colleagues at the school.

So if she kept this Facebook account, completely separate. From her life as a school teacher and didn't say anything on the Facebook account about being a teacher and didn't post anything about being in a school, it's entirely possible that that. would be seen as separate. from her job as a public school teacher. And the fact that it was meant to be private.

Could end up playing a role in how this is decided.

Now, of course, once the cat's out of the bag and the comment is made public, that is what ended up causing the disruption.

So I don't know if it'll end up having a difference, but certainly as this case progresses, that's going to be one of the arguments that this was not something that was related to her job, that this was something that she did in private as a private citizen, exercising her First Amendment rights. As distasteful as the comment might have been, the First Amendment protects distasteful comments. It's designed to let people say what they want. And if you're going to have a restriction on the First Amendment right, you have to have a reason to do that. And I think in this case, Whether there's going to be any liability on behalf of the Gaston County School Board and/or the superintendent is really going to boil down to whether.

This comment once it got public traction was enough That It justified the schools saying, we can't have this distraction. It takes away from our ability to educate the students, which is the job of the schools. Final question for you, Mitch. The timing in all of this, this lawsuit just filed this week, Charlie Kirk's assassination happening back in early September of 2025. Do we know anything as to why this took as long as it did to officially file in federal court?

I don't know except that you have Quite a while typically to be able to file a suit of this sort. She, the all of this was happening in September. The hearing before the school board took place in early November of 2025. She was fired at that point.

So we're roughly. Seven, eight months now, since then, which is not a long time. Typically, you have to file a suit. Within, in some cases, a year of an event happening. In some cases, you get two or three years.

And so, my guess is she was weighing her options. She got fired, and so she was deciding what to do next. Try to get another job, put this behind you, say, wait a minute, you know, I should get my job back, which is one of the things that the suit is asking for. It's asking for her to be reinstated to her job and to get damages.

So my guess is she has spent this time. Consulting with her family, consulting with lawyers, deciding: do I have a case under what Arguments: Would I have a case? Is this something going to be viable? Is it going to be worth it if we try to do this? And so having a suit filed.

within seven, eight months of the firing. Is not atypical. Had she waited four or five years, that would have been something that would have been well out of the ordinary. But certainly within a year of the incident happening, it's not surprising to see a lawsuit at that point. We will keep our eyes for a reaction to this federal lawsuit from the Gaston County School Board and the Gaston County School System.

We've got continuing coverage this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own.

If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 30% with promo code news at Lifelock.com. Terms apply. It's 5:55.

Good morning again, and welcome into the Carolina Journal News Hour right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM WBT. Earlier this week, we talked about a really important meeting hosted by the North Carolina State Health Plan as they continue to announce some pretty significant changes to the state health plan for those that have worked or do continue employment within the state of North Carolina and its government structure. One of the things that we were still waiting to figure out was who is going to be the provider, the provider tier access tier in the triangle area here in North Carolina. We have learned this week now over the last few days that the North Carolina State Health Plan and Duke Health have announced an agreement that came out on Wednesday that will make Duke Health the access provider under the plan's new provider tier system across the state. With a primary emphasis on the triangle in the central part of North Carolina.

Access providers will maintain the same level of service next year at the same cost as members are currently paying. According to the chief executive officer of Duke Health, Dr. David Zoss, he says serving state health plan members is both a privilege and a responsibility for Duke Health. Our priority is making sure state health plan members and their families can continue turning to Duke Health. We are grateful to the treasurer Brad Breiner and his team for working with us to reach an agreement that preserves access to Duke Health for the people who serve our state every day.

According to the press release, as an access provider, Duke Health will continue offering state health plan members access to its statewide network of hospitals, physician practices, as well as other locations across North Carolina, connecting patients to a full range of primary care, specialty care, highly specialized treatment, and everything else that is offered under the Duke Health system. Wake Med, the other major hospital system in the triangle, will be classified as a non-preferred health care provider for most services. The state health plan has nearly 750,000 members across the state of North Carolina. You can read more on this and some of the other changes coming to the state health plan. We've got all those details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.

That's going to do it for a Thursday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back for you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. Yeah.

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