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It's 505 and welcome in to a Wednesday 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. While early voting doesn't kick off here in North Carolina for a couple of more weeks, absentee by mail balloting has been going on since the beginning of September. We're keeping an eye on those numbers each and every week here on the Carolina Journal News Hour to walk us through the latest this morning.
Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation, as always, joins us on the program to discuss. Andy, we chatted last week about what were relatively small returns as it related to the beginning of the absentee by mail period. We've gone through another week, more ballots being returned. Where do things stand right now?
Well, as of yesterday, we're looking at 7,346 ballots that have been accepted. And, you know, there have been some that have returned. There are some that are like cured or some that are pending cure and they're trying to get that. But these are just the numbers that have been officially accepted and are going to be counted on Election Day. And this week, we got, or the last week, we got a little bit more than the week before.
And that's kind of a normal process that we'll see. We're going to see those votes increasing each week, will be a little bit bigger than the week before, going right through to Election Day.
Now, it's important when we're talking about these numbers, we are not comparing them to 2024. Obviously, that was a presidential election year. Andy, as you've talked to us in the past about voting trends, that tends to have significantly higher turnout than a midterm election.
So, we're looking at 2022 and 2018. There's a big gap in the middle there: 2019, COVID-19, everything kind of getting turned upside down. It's kind of from your vantage point, it's got to be kind of an interesting thing to be comparing those numbers with all of the nonsense that went on from 2020 onwards. Right. And we saw that because in 2020, that first election, a fifth of all ballots in North Carolina were mail ballots.
They were getting all these messages that it's not safe to go vote. And so a lot of people took that to heart, especially Democrats. And so they submitted absentee ballots instead of voting in person. And I think we saw a lingering after effect of that in 2022.
Now, it declined. It was still, it declined down to the single digits, but it was the high single digits. And so in 2022, we had over 180,000 absentee ballots that were accepted that year. And in 2018, that was down around 97,000.
So you're looking at almost twice as many ballots four years ago compared to eight years ago. And So far, it looks like we're kind of going to split the difference this year. You're getting more people returning to their old habits of voting in person, especially voting in person early now. And so I think we are going to see a decline in absentee ballots. It's a little early to try to project exact numbers, but I'm thinking we're probably going to be somewhere in the.
130 to 150,000 range.
So a lot less than four years ago, but still a lot more than eight years ago. One of the things that you will always remind us as we'll have these discussions now on absentee by mail as we approach middle October, we'll be catching up a couple of times a week, looking at some of these early voting totals. Andy, it's hard to extrapolate based on what we've learned and what we've got right now as to exactly what turnout will be when everything is said and done on the evening of November the 3rd, correct? That is true. And so, my mantra in all of this, and even going into the first half of early in-person voting, is that earlier voting doesn't mean more voting.
We just don't know. It could just be a change of habits going on with these things. And likewise, since we're seeing a drop in absentee voting, that doesn't mean that turnout is necessarily going to be less this year than it was four years ago, especially on the Democratic side. All other indications that we see from polling and whatnot say that Democrats are highly enthused, even though Democrats have dropped off more than Republicans so far.
So, you don't want to read too much into it. As we get a few more weeks in, then you start getting a chance to do a little bit more apples-to-apples comparisons. But even then, it's still going to be a really small chunk, like mid-single digits of the electorate that we're talking about. And so we'll continue to track absentee by mail, and we'll begin the process of early voting coming up here in middle October. You had an article over at the John Locke Foundation website on Monday describing a very interesting story, a very big story that unfolded earlier, much earlier this year, back in January, Republicans overtaking Democrats in terms of voter registration here in North Carolina.
We'll put a pin in that and say we'll note that unaffiliated voters have been and are consistently the largest voting block, but it was unaffiliated, Republican, and Democrat. We had not seen that in quite some time here in North Carolina. Your article Monday morning at the John Locke Foundation website says, is there potential that that flips back over and the Democrats, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in the months that could follow? It is looking like it, and that really depends on if the current trend continues. And that's always a dangerous game to play.
But right now, it looks like, if anything, it's accelerated in this past week. Right now, Democrats and Republicans are both below where they were when we're looking at the weeks leading up to Election Day in voter registration. They're both behind where they were a few years ago. But Democrats have kind of taken off in this past week. And, you know, before they were both a little over 7,000 each at this point, again, starting like 15 weeks before Election Day, we're now seven weeks before election day.
And Right now, this year, Democrats are down to about 5,700. Republicans are down, only have about 2,000 increased voter registration.
So Democrats have really started to pick up the pace. Republicans have not over these past couple of weeks. And if this continues along the same lines it has, Democrats will make up that last little gap, which I think is around 8,000 registrations, in late October, just in time for Election Day.
So it's going to be an interesting story if it comes out that way. Like if Republicans don't really get things going on their own voter registration efforts. Andy, you mentioned something a couple of minutes ago that I think is important to restress for our audience. This is a midterm election, Republicans controlling pretty much everything ongoing in Washington, D.C. That lends itself to a lot of enthusiasm for the party in the minority.
That is the Republican part, or that is the Democrat Party, excuse me. Even here in North Carolina, you've got a Republican-led General Assembly, a lot of Republicans in the Council of State as well.
So there is some motivation, no question about it, on the Democrat side of the aisle. Is this something that you would expect to be when you've got a midterm election that, again, should favor the Democrat Party, that there are more and more people saying, yeah, I'm ready to go. I'm a Democrat. Let me make sure I'm registered to vote.
Well, you know, going back to 18, we really didn't see that as much that time around.
So this is a little bit different. And it doesn't, and as I mentioned, Democrats are also down, you know, just down by a little bit compared to Republicans, down by a lot where they were, you know, four years ago compared to this. And so I think it's really, it's not like a bunch of people saying, yay, I'm a Democrat. I want to go for the Democrats. It is really either Republicans, people that normally registered Republican are registered non-affiliated because they don't want to be mentally associated with Republicans in this midterm election, or there are people that might normally register Republicans that are just so unenthused in this situation.
Mentally playing defense can be tough. And so they may not even be registering at all.
So it's probably some combination of those two things. Are we still seeing strong registration with unaffiliated? Again, we talk about this difference between Democrat and Republicans, and a lot of that is a little bit of splitting of the hair, Andy, because the reality is the unaffiliated block continued and has continued to skyrocket in terms of its popularity, in large part, I think, because North Carolina has this. It's interesting.
Some people call it a semi-open. Others call it a semi-closed primary where you can choose if you're an unaffiliated voter which party primary you want to play in. Are we still seeing those gains for UNAs? Yeah, they're actually up compared to the similar point in 2018, 37,000 this time compared to 34,000 previously. And once again, that may be a combination of just more people feeling unaffiliated or maybe some people that would have registered Republican taking that refuge in the unaffiliated.
Unless you plan to run for public office, there is no advantage to registering with the party. And there are some people, especially in this era of doxing and whatnot, there are some people, probably an increasing number of people that don't, you know, they don't have any data or information out. Them about anything, about their inclinations in any way, if they can help it.
So, unaffiliated is kind of a safe harbor for a lot of folks. Especially when you can go to the State Board of Elections website, look up somebody's name and learn all of their voting habits, and a whole bunch of other information about them, all publicly available here in North Carolina. All right, Andy, we talked about two different things here. We talked about absentee by mail and voter registration. One of the websites, a product of the John Locke Foundation, actually covers both of these things.
Carolina Elections, you've been updating that in the past couple of weeks. You'll continue to do that for the next couple of weeks as well. Tell us about that site, real quick.
Well, Carolina Elections, we've got two sites like you mentioned. We have voter registration changes.
So every Monday morning, I come in, get my coffee, and update the data. That data is imported directly from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. And then the other half of Carolina Elections, and I should say this is Carolinaelections.com. John Locke's webpage is johnloc.org. And the other side is vote tracker.
And in that one, we get the data every weekday during the mail voting period, during absentee voting. And then once we start on early voting, I will get my coffee. And even on the weekends, I'll be uploading that data.
So you will get the latest data straight from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, but in a much more convenient package.
So if you want to know like how things are going in Wake County as far as turnout, who's voting and the numbers are, you can click on Wake County. If you want to check out Democrats, Republicans, we can do that. If you want to see the age range, we have a chart on age range.
So we have a lot of ways you can kind of slice up that data and see how North Carolina voters are. Behaving this year. Yeah, and we'll continue to dive into those various bits of information and break down some of those demographics as we continue the march towards November the 3rd.
Some great information and insight as always this morning. It's greatly appreciated. Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. For many people, renting is a convenient option.
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It's 5:22. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM. WBT, a couple of interesting stories out of Charlotte this morning that we are keeping an eye on. We'll start with Tijuana Brown, a federal judge on Tuesday, sentenced the former Charlotte City Councilwoman to 10 months in federal prison for taking part in stealing COVID-19 relief funds. The judge rejected prosecutors' request that she get probation instead.
Her two daughters, who were also charged with her, got probation and four months of house arrest, with the three women also being responsible to pay back more than $137,000 to the government. This case first came on to our radar back in May of 2025 when Brown was still a sitting, a city, Charlotte City Council member, her district three seat in which she was serving a great Grand jury charged her and her daughters with lying on COVID-19 loan applications. Prosecutors and documents said that the family submitted at least 15 applications for pandemic business loans between 2020 and 2021. They used fake tax papers and made-up employee numbers to justify those loans and took more than $124,000 in those relief loans.
However, most of that money was spent on themselves as court records say that Brown used the loan money, including funds that went into a bank account for her nonprofit, Beauty After Bars, on Louis Vuitton products, other lavish items, and a $15,000 birthday party for Tijuana Brown. The party included a rented throne, horse-drawn carriage. There was a sizzle reel video that was made showing off the luxury of that birthday party. It was $15,000 worth of COVID-19 relief funds that were used for that. Prosecutors, as I noted, said that they would not ask for prison time.
However, the judge sentenced her anyway at the high end of the recommendation range as he was very blunt about how she handled the charges after she was still in office. After the indictment, Brown held a news conference, refused to resign, and said that she would, in fact, run again, as well as calling the case a political attack, noting that she had already paid back some of the loans on her own. And did not need the judiciary to, I guess, force her hand in doing that. Regardless, she will now be serving 10 months in federal prison. This is not the first time that Tijuana Brown has had problems as it relates to scamming the government.
She spent time in the 1990s in prison on fraud charges, and it is important to note that she did not resign from her city council seat following the May 2025 indictment. She continued on counsel until her term expired near the end of 2025. She lost a primary and was not able to continue holding that seat. We'll be keeping an eye on those details as we roll through the next couple of months. And in some other Charlotte news this morning, a very busy meeting of the Charlotte Mecklenburg School Board, the Board of Education, last night as they voted 5-4 to terminate Superintendent Dr.
Crystal Hill. The Superintendent was ousted just one month after being released. Reinstated following a two-month internal investigation. Listen to this: this makes her the district's seventh superintendent since 2011. A high level of turnover within North Carolina is one of the largest school districts anywhere in North Carolina.
An 18-page report regarding the decision, according to the district, states the review did not find evidence of improper conduct by the superintendent. It also said the review did not identify conflicts of interest or improper activity related by contracting that the superintendent agreed upon, contracts that she approved or signed off on. The report also notes that moving a forward, well, the report doesn't note this, but she was terminated for convenience. That was given as the reason, which means that she will be entitled to her full year's salary of a whopping $341,000 in severance pay that she will receive. This was not a unanimous decision by the board.
As I mentioned, this was a 5-4 vote to terminate her moving forward. There was obviously sharp division among board members who opposed the motion. School board member Lenora Schipp questioned the abruptness of the vote. It was added to the agenda of the meeting last minute, noting, quote, I'm very concerned how this motion came up so quickly. School board member Cynthia Stone also voiced opposition to changing leadership at this period of time, saying, quote, it just seems to me the wrong time to change horses.
It just seems to me that we are doing, what we are doing is creating our own problems. Other board members appointed directly to internal conversation with the leadership body. School board member Dr. Monty Witherspoon criticized the board's atmosphere during the meeting, noting that, quote, this board has spiraled into. Complete chaos.
This board is dysfunctional. This board is broken. Despite the leadership turmoil, board members noted the need to maintain operations and public trust, something that many of the board members that voted in favor of terminating Superintendent Dr. Crystal Hill noted that they are going to have to work very hard at in the months that follow due to some of the controversy that took place. During the meeting, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Board of Education released the following statement after the meeting.
Tonight, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Board of Education voted 5-4 to terminate Dr. Crystal Hill's employment as the superintendent of the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system for convenience effective immediately. The board has determined that a leadership transition is the best long-term interest of Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. Under the terms of her employment contract, Dr. Hill is entitled to receive one-year severance.
Dr. Melissa Balknite has been appointed acting superintendent of the Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. In a separate leadership change, Stephanie Sneed has resigned as chair of the Board of Education. She will continue to serve as a member of the board, and Vice Chair Gregory Ranklin will assume the role as board chair. Elizabeth Duvall has been elected as vice chair for the remainder of the term.
We recognize that the events of recent months have created uncertainty for our employees, students, and families. Our priority now is to provide stability for the district, support our employees, and ensure that our schools remain focused on education and the well-being of every student. The board appreciates the service and leadership of. Chair Sneed to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Board of Education and Dr. Hill to the schools and recognizes the progress achieved during their respective terms.
As I noted, this is a pattern at this point of lack of consistency within that position of superintendent of one of the state's largest school districts. This is the seventh superintendent that the district has had since just 2011. There's likely to be a lot more on this story. We'll continue to follow it here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Expect a lot more coverage throughout the day as well, right here on WBT.
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Uh 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. Over the last couple of weeks, we've been following a major healthcare story unfolding across the state of North Carolina.
We head to Wake County this morning in a merger between Atrium Health and Wake Med. This has gotten a lot of activity both in the news and on social media over the last couple of weeks. To walk us through the latest from a Wake County Board of Commissioners meeting on Monday evening, Teresa Opaca, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Teresa, am I reading your article correctly? A more than five-hour meeting that included this vote?
Yes, Nick, thanks for having me this morning. Yes, it seemed like it was more like 10 hours, but yeah, it was well over five hours yesterday that they had this vote. They started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and they just, or actually Monday rather, excuse me. And it just kept going on and on and on. And it seemed like all of Wake County was there to comment.
But rightly so, it was a very important meeting and a very important vote.
So as you mentioned, five to two, they voted to have that merger between Atrium and WakeMed. And yeah, there were numerous people toward the end of the session, you know. Saying shame, shame, shame, disrupting the process, but they did get their vote through at about 7:30 on Monday night. Let's go through some of the details here. Atrium Health, obviously, headquartered in the Charlotte area.
Wake Med, obviously, we're talking about up in Raleigh. What are some of the details on this merger that presumably and there are some other steps in the process that we'll get into, but it has gotten the green light at least from the Wake County Board of Commissioners. What exactly is going to go on here? Sure, just to highlight some of the points.
So, Atrium Health is going to invest about $2 billion over the next 15 years. That is a change from the original agreement, and that's in an effort to modernize and expand Wake Med's facilities, including upgrades to its main campus on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh. And, like I said, that revision specifies that Atrium, rather than Wake Med, will fully fund the investment. Originally, it was going to be all on Wake Med, but that was one of the changes that came last week, which we'll talk about. Also, atrium is going to pay about $15 million a year for the next 10 years for a new Wake County whole health program that's focusing on Access to affordable care, mental health, placement of foster youth in crisis, homelessness, food insecurity, and other issues.
They're also going to raise Wake Med is the commitment for low income, covering a low income from 4.8% to 8% with adjusted revenue. And also, eight of Wake Med's 14 board members will be appointed by Wake County Commissioners. The remaining six will be appointed by Atri. I'm just going to go really quickly. Price increases will be capped at no more than one and a half times the annual increase in Medicare costs for the next five years.
They're also going to be less stringent with debt collection practices. And Atrium will be also named as a third-party beneficiary. But one of the big ones, too, that even though one of the commissioners talked about this and said she voted for it, but had a problem with it, Atrium will have the right to dismiss WakeMed's CEO.
So those are some of the highlights of what this agreement came to. Teresa, this is not necessarily new in terms of these large-scale mergers in the healthcare industry. We've seen a huge consolidation over the last 20 years. I can't speak to every other state, but we can look at examples here in North Carolina where a lot of these larger companies, whether we're talking about Atrium or Novant, have really taken over a lot of these. And obviously, Wake Met is a large system, but taken over a lot of these systems across the state.
This five-hour meeting included about two hours of public comment. What were some of the objections from the citizens in and around Wake County that showed up and spoke Monday evening? Sure.
So a lot of it said they're not going to have the same type of care that Wake Med has had. Affordability is going to be a problem as well. You also heard Talking about You know, with atrium already consolidating, we've had a Wake Forest Baptist. They said the nurse-to-patient ratios have the patients have increased under the nurses, meaning there's more work for the nurses, more patients per nurse, which is not a good situation. They're talking about all the bad issues that came along with having this merger go through.
And, you know, affordability was mentioned as a definite one. You see that all the time. They're like, it becomes less affordable.
So there were numerous things. One thing that stuck out to me. You know, this was on Monday. I'm not sure. I don't follow the Wake County Commissioners every month for their meetings, or this is when they're typically scheduling a meeting.
So I do apologize for that. But it was Yom Kippur, which was something that was mentioned numerous times over and over by different people. The Holiest Day according to the Jewish faith, that a lot of people would not be able to attend that. Also, the 2 p.m. start time.
That was a thing that they mentioned during this, too. Just wanted to put that in there. But yeah, a lot of the similar concerns, it's not going to be the same, you know, hometown hospital that people have come to know, or local hospital in the Raleigh area.
So there are a lot of different concerns that were raised at that meeting. Yeah, no question about that. We've seen similar discussions in other parts of the state as well when some of these large hospital systems and healthcare systems have come in and purchased community-owned hospitals and community-run health care systems like this. Teresa, this spawned a lot of controversy back just a couple of short months ago because it kind of came out of nowhere. As I remember going back through some of our original reporting on this and some of the other reporting across Wake County, this just like randomly popped up on a commission agenda one day and everybody was kind of looking around saying, oh, this is a major decision.
How do we not know anything about this before it popped up? Yeah, and they originally were going to vote on this in May. I mean, the vote on this was going to be a lot sooner than it was on Monday. But yeah, it just seemed like it popped up out of nowhere. But they did decide to have different meetings and different Yeah.
Hearing from the public and across different places. And actually But when we're saying this, just popped up out of nowhere. If you do look at The article, it does say talks between the two hospital systems actually began in 2022. Interesting, which I, yeah, which I did not know about. I mean, we did talk about this earlier in the year when this first came up.
That's when Wake Med put out a request for a proposal, our RFP, looking for a partnership in oncology.
So, that I guess got the ball rolling, basically, is what they were looking at. But, yeah, this seemed to come out of nowhere. And again, back in May, they were going to be voting on this. And a lot of people are like, Well, wait a minute, you're really rushing things. Let's have these discussions.
So, they held different community forums at churches and public places. I guess they had other public meetings that they talked about this. And, you know, even back in May, state treasurer Brad Briner, among others, voiced his concerns about the proposal. And also, Tom Friedman, who is executive administrator of state health plan, he said at a board meeting in June that atrium is anywhere from 15 to 40 percent more expensive. In aggregate than Wake Med.
And if Wake Med were to apply those rates based on the state health plan utilization, it would be on average between $7 to $11 more per member per month. And that's what you've been hearing: that the costs are going to go up. You also had one of the Wake County commissioners vote against it. That was one of her primary concerns: costs were going to go up. She talked about that.
She says, I'm here for the little guy, basically, is what she said. I'm not here for big corporations. It was Vicki Adamson, I believe, District 7. She said she voiced her concerns over that because she knew prices were going to go up and just. She said so herself.
This changed last week. Governor Stein did send a letter to Atrium and to Wake Med over his concerns, and some things changed. But she said that's still not enough time. This is Vicki Admondson, still not enough time for really us to go through all of this. We just got the paperwork on Thursday, and now we're voting for it on Monday.
But they did. They went ahead and voted on it.
So time will tell if any of those concerns have been valid that were raised at that meeting. Yeah, and recapping the headline here, it was a 5-2 vote by the Wake County Board of Commissioners on Monday evening to approve this merger of Wake Med and Atrium Hum. We'll be taking over that facility. Teresa, I'm glad you brought up some of the comments from Treasurer Briner. We've heard from the governor in recent weeks as well.
Do you know if there's any state agencies that are going to be involved in this process, or now that the state health plan, or excuse me, now that the Wake County Board of Commissioners has approved this, does it just go forward? Or are there some other steps in the process here? I do believe it does go over to Attorney General Jeff Jackson. He is going to take a look at it, according to what Governor Stein put in his latest statement. After that, this merger still does need approval from the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice before it can be completed.
So that's on the federal level.
So it's not a quote-unquote done deal yet.
So other eyes have to take a look at it, but more than likely it's going to be approved unless something major pops up. But yeah, there's been a lot of different factors. Of course, a lot of people have sentimental values toward it or just are really concerned about it growing too big and prices getting more expensive. But there are other things that come into play versus, well, taking Wake Med's CEO out if they want to or. Having control over the board because that's basically what is going to be happening with this.
Even though they are getting some money to refurbish or renovate some of the different buildings in the area, there's a lot of unanswered questions about what exactly this is going to mean. But you heard five of the commissioners say that they were in favor or think it's a good deal and think it's going to be a benefit and make Wake Med a lot stronger because that's exactly what they needed. But you did have two opposing votes who said maybe, maybe not, and maybe they did need more time. What's the rush? And that you heard over and over also from the public.
What's the rush? Why are you pushing this through?
So. And we'll, of course, keep our we'll keep an eye on the next steps in this. Attorney General Jeff Jackson, some federal stuff as well.
So, we'll continue to follow this process. You brought up a little while ago, Tom Friedman. He's the executive administrator of the state health plan. Teresa, you and I have talked a lot over the last year and a half or so about some issues at the state health plan, some very tough decisions by that board, by the treasurer, and Brad Briner to try and get that system under control. Let's face it, there's a lot of current and former government employees that work in and around Wake County, our state's capital.
And with his discussion in June about costs anywhere from 15 to 40 percent higher, that could have a major impact on the state budget, regardless of whether you live in and around Wake County. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that is a major concern. If prices go up that much, then what is it going to do to the state health plan and the budget?
And we even had Other people talking about it, it's going to be getting more expensive for health care here in North Carolina. I had that in the article: the most expensive state in the nation for health care is about to get more expensive. And, you know, it's just a concern if prices are going to be going up. It's not just because it's atrium, it's not just because it's Wake Med. You do see this as a result of a lot of the different mergers that a lot of prices do go up over time.
And there is a concern about health care. But yeah, coming back to that, it has a definite concern for the state health plan and for state budget. You know, everything else is going up right now, and I don't think people need their health care to go up even more. But hopefully, this will work out in the end. Yeah, well, you talk about a simple supply and demand equation, Teresa, and this is why I think, in large part here in North Carolina and some other states across the nation, we have seen these soaring health care costs.
Folks are very familiar with that here in North Carolina. We will be keeping an eye on this as some other parties do get involved in this major merger between Wake Med and Atrium Health. Teresa's got more coverage this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update. Teresa Opeka joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
It's 5.56. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. We were just talking about the 5-2 vote on the Wake Med Atrium merger. State Treasurer Brad Briner sounding off on this in a video yesterday. When the initial consent agenda attempt to give WakeMed to atrium was made public in May, we made our many objections to the process and the proposal quite clear.
After months of public hearings and some last-minute minor modifications engineered by the Governor's Office, the Wake County Commissioners voted to proceed anyway yesterday. While we're not surprised by this outcome, we remain profoundly concerned by it. The concern is magnified by the fact that nothing has fundamentally changed from the original proposal and that basic market principles have not changed either. Hospital consolidation leads to less competition and higher prices. And I'm not talking about a rural hospital getting acquired when it desperately needs a lifeline to ensure that rural North Carolinians have access to health care.
I'm referring to when the merger happens as a means of having better market leverage. The result is that everyone's health care costs will go up. And we don't have to guess at that. The CEO was asked if costs will go up in his interview last week, and he eventually responded simply. I hope so.
I was asked to co-chair the Governor's Healthcare Affordability Commission. And this decision makes it even harder for that effort to be successful. It also makes it even harder to keep the state health plan and other employer plans solvent. It's no different than when I'm trying to lose weight and rationalize having a second dessert. All the rationalization in the world cannot change the fact that it's a bad decision and I know it.
So I'm echoing the call for Attorney General Jeff Jackson to step in and conduct a thorough, independent assessment of this transaction, its effect on prices, competition, and access. and I'm hopeful that federal regulators will step in to consider how cross-market mergers like this one harm competition. The people of Wake County and the taxpayers of North Carolina deserve better than what has happened here so far. but it's not too late to back away. That is State Treasurer Brad Breiner continuing coverage of this WakeMed Atrium merger over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
That's going to do it for a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. My dough never sees a freezer. Faye Hollis makes the biscuits at Hardy's.
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