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It's five oh five, and welcome into a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk one and seven point nine FM. WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. State Treasurer Brad Briner, who oversees the North Carolina State Health Plan, called a new announcement this week from Atrium Health.
They announced a new affordability program for State Health Plan members. Nothing more than a shell game. According to a press release, the Atrium Health Affordability Protection Program is intended to address the higher healthcare costs that the state health plan's new tiered provider structure imposes on patients seeking care at Atrium Health facilities. Through the new program, Atrium said enrolled members will have the lowest copays and overall share of costs for any for care at any Atrium Health facility or provider. This includes primary, specialty care, outpatient, and inpatient services than any other health system across North Carolina.
Atrium gave an example of a member receiving outpatient surgical care at a non-preferred facility under the state health plan's new tiered structure. Within what is called the standard plan, the member would face a $1,000 copay, a deductible of up to $5,000 for an individual, and then 30% co-insurance fees. Under the new Atrium program announced this week, Atrium said that members' costs would be reduced to a four hundred dollar copay, saving that member thousands of dollars. Steve Smoot, who is the president of the Advocate Health's North Carolina and Georgia division, of which Atrium Health is a part, said in the release that regardless of how Atrium Health is categorized under the state health plan's new structure, the new Atrium Health Affordability Protection Program is designed to ensure that members can continue receiving care from Atrium Health at the lowest cost share available under the state health plan. The state treasurer and Brad Bryner said after the after a council of state meeting this week, what Atrium is trying to do is pay copays on behalf of our members so they can go to Atrium.
Sounds good, right? The problem is that our total costs go up thirty or forty percent.
So you might be paying less tomorrow for your copay, but I assure you, you will have to pay a lot more the day after tomorrow, and that's the problem that we've been trying to manage. With the state health plan, the state treasurer also took to social media, putting out a minute and a half of video talking about some of these programs. This is what he had to say earlier this week. Atrium is playing shell games with our state health plan members, promising lower costs on the one hand while bankrupting the plan on the other. We know their announcement today looks all shiny on the surface, but this is actually the type of greed we've all grown accustomed to in healthcare, and it could become a multi-hundred million-dollar problem for the state health plan.
So here's the simple truth: some of our members in the Charlotte and Triad area would pay less out of pocket under Atrium's scheme, but the state health plan won't. It will be subject to Atrium's high rates, which are the highest rates for all hospital systems in 2027. Higher rates mean the plan will need more money from all taxpayers across the state, and even higher premiums for every member starting in 2028. The plan introduced a new tiered provider network for 2027, designed to preserve access to care while encouraging competition to place the plan on a more sustainable financial path. We have fantastic partners with UNC and with Novant that have lowered member costs and plan costs dramatically.
Simply put, if Atrium's scheme proves to be legal, and we doubt it, and our members also choose to continue to seek care at Atrium, there's no other outcome other than severely higher premiums. And less benefits for our members starting in 2028. We will have more for our members. That state treasurer Brad Briner releasing a video on social media this week, talking about this new plan being rolled out by Atrium Health, highlighting for members in and around the Charlotte area and the Triad, where Atrium has a plethora of facilities. The state health plan's board of trustees voted back in July on what they called a new provider tier system, including preferred access.
Non-preferred and out-of-network, with open enrollment for the plan beginning on October the 12th. The state treasurer said there won't be any changes at this point. Bryner told reporters after a council of state meeting this week, Atrium put out a press release to try and essentially change the preferred the preferred provider program at the last minute. They can't do that. We run the plan for our members' benefits in the long run.
Their proposal is short-term oriented. Long-term, extremely costly, and so we can't let it get forward," he said. That under the state law, the state treasurer and the state health plan have the authority to manage the plan, and what Atrium is trying to do is manage its own benefits," Briner said.
So you can see why we would be against this going forward. There's also a federal law called Stark, which essentially prohibits you from doing exactly what Atrium is. Doing, and so we think it's problematic from a lot of perspectives. Not the least of which is it bankrupts the state health plan much sooner than it would have if it was just left alone. And our whole job is to keep the state health plan around to benefit our members for the long run.
This is working against us. Atrium has responded to some of the critical commentary from the state treasurer and Brad Briner, a spokesperson for Advocate Health, which is the parent of A. Atrium has said in an emailed statement to Carolina Journal this week, "We designed the Atrium Health Affordability Protection Program to meet the needs of our patients in the North Carolina State Health Plan, teachers, first responders, and state employees. We are disappointed with the characterization that this program was designed to harm the financial stability of the plan. The Atrium Health Affordability Protection Program's sole purpose is to make health." More affordable for North Carolina North Carolinians, dedicated public servants, and their families.
The spokesperson said that in July, multiple proposals from Atrium submitted to match the same discounts offered by the plan to other providers in the preferred tier were rejected. The spokesman went on to say, as a result, nearly a hundred thousand North Carolina state health plan members at Atrium Health would have faced substantially higher out-of-pocket costs to continue seeing the physicians and care teams that they know and trust. The Atrium Health Affordability Protection Program solves this problem by lowering members' costs, not increasing them. In essence, Atrium Health is absorbing these additional costs so that North Carolina State Health Plan members don't have to. The spokesperson told Carolina Journal that Atrium Health's offer to match the preferred discount tier and designation remains on the table.
They also pointed to a press release last month about an agreement to add 12 Atrium hospitals to the access provider tier. That the state health plan explicitly stated that Atrium Health is not currently the most expensive provider. The spokesperson also said that the 2027 North Carolina State Health Plan design, not Atrium Health's pricing, will result in members being charged more to use Atrium Health providers and facilities. Spokesperson said, in part, "We have heard loud and clear from thousands of North Carolina State Health Plan members that this is a decision that was not right for themselves and their families who depend on Atrium Health for care." We share the concerns about the solvency of the North Carolina State Health Plan, so it's unclear to us why the plan rejected our offers to save money for taxpayers and members. We also disagree with the assertion that offering discounts to the North Carolina State Health Plan members is somehow unlawful.
So this back and forth between a Briner and Atrium Health does continue here. He's also been that being State Treasurer Brad Briner very. Vocal in his criticism of H. H. M.
Health of Wake Med merger, which the Wake County Commission voted five to two in favor of at its September the twenty first meeting. Back in May, he, alongside other elected officials, voiced concerns about the proposal. With Briner saying at the time, "There's a simple business principle that when suppliers consolidate and competition is reduced, it is the consumers who suffer." This is. Been proven to be true time and time again in the healthcare landscape, where prices continue to rise and patients are left with nothing but mounting medical debt. In a September the 22nd video message, the treasurer said that he remains profoundly concerned about the deal, adding that nothing has fundamentally changed from the original proposal earlier this year, and that Wake Med's CEO said in an interview he'd hoped costs would go up if the merger went through.
Briner also said that it would make it harder for Governor Josh Stein's Healthcare Affordability Commission, of which he is the co-chair of, to succeed, and will make it even harder to keep the state health plan and other employer plans solvent. He told reporters on Tuesday that State Attorney General Jeff Jackson is in the process of reviewing this major merger between Atrium Health and Awake Med in in and around Raleigh. Briner told reporters, "I don't know that there is much he can do beyond that. The Federal Trade Commission will look at this. They have historically not looked at cross-market mergers like this as problematic.
However, we would respectfully disagree with that. These type of Mergers create leverage for folks like Atrium, who can charge us more. And so, I don't know how we wouldn't be harmed by that. This is likely to continue to play out here in North Carolina, as State Treasurer Brad Briners had to make some very tough decisions with the state health plan in the last couple of years to try and bring that a plan back into the green, as it was looking at hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt. Just in the next couple of years, we will be keeping an eye on those details.
Continuing coverage over on our website carolinajournal. dot com. Look for the story with the headline: Briner Atrium Health Plan Could Hasten SHP Bankruptcy. This is Rick Burgess from the Rick Burgess Show. If you're still auto renewing your car insurance without shopping around, you are probably throwing money away.
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We've been talking a lot about education over the last couple of weeks here in North Carolina. We'll continue that this morning as the state's public school districts recorded the lowest number of teacher vacancies in at least six years. This is according to new survey results released in late September by a group called the North Carolina Schools Superintendent Association, their abbreviation there, the NCSSA. There were 2,009 teacher vacancies at the start of the 26-27 school year, which is down almost seven percent from last year, according to the data. The count is the first taken since the state budget raised teacher pay on an average of eight percent.
We covered the budget and some of its details in great detail back over the last few months here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Teacher vacancies reached a pandemic-era peak in 2022, with more than almost 4,500 teacher vacancies across the state before falling by about 900 in. 2023, 400 in 2024, and a big jump, 987 in 2025. But total teacher vacancies across all job categories rose to 6,265 from about just under 6,200. The first increase since the this organization of superintendents began publishing a statewide total in 2022.
Openings for classified staff, bus drivers, and central office employees all rose, according to Jack Hoke, who is the NCSSA executive director. He said in a statement, "North Carolina's school districts have made meaningful progress in reducing teacher vacancies, and that progress reflects the determined work of local leaders and their teams." At the same time, more than six thousand. Two hundred vacancies, particularly the continued need for classified employees and bus drivers, remind us that staffing challenges do remain. Every vacancy affects the school community, and districts need to sustain support to recruit, prepare, and retain the people who serve our students every day. The state budget raised starting teacher pay from forty-one thousand dollars to forty-eight thousand dollars a year.
Effective July the first, with the General Assembly passing it in the in the first days of July, and Governor Josh Stein officially signing it into law on July the seventh, after most districts had finished hiring for the fall. Dr. Bob Lubeke, who is the director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation, said that the drop reflects enrollment and funding changes as much as hiring. He said, in part, to Carolina Journal, "The improved teacher vacancy numbers are welcome, but not surprising. Student enrollment in many districts continue to decline, and in addition, positions that were once funded by federal COVID nineteen funds are now gone." He said, however, the increase in starting teacher pay to forty-eight thousand dollars, along with an average eight percent pay raise for teachers, should help those numbers continue to continue to decline.
That over a quarter of school districts have one or fewer teacher vacancies is evidence that policies are working and helping to reduce teacher vacancies. Jack Hoke attributed last year's drop to the end of the federal pandemic relief funding, which expired in September of 2024. Districts had to use the money to add positions or spend it, he said, in an NCAS podcast in September. And eliminated any that, when the money ran out, he said in part, "With fewer overall positions in school districts and staff that had previously held those support positions now filling positions where they may have otherwise been vacant, it makes sense that there would be fewer vacancies statewide." And the numbers are pretty astonishing. North Carolina's public schools employed ninety thousand one hundred and five classroom teachers in the twenty-four twenty-five school year, according to the Department of Public Instruction.
Most recent reports on teaching professions total full-time school employees that year was the lowest since the two thousand and three two thousand and four school year. Districts reported five thousand four hundred and fifty-nine Teachers on residency licenses—that's up almost five and a half percent from last year, and the most since the NCSSA began tracking the figure in 2022. Residency licenses allow candidates to teach while completing a preparation program. With some districts, including other alternatively licensed teachers, in their final count. DPI's official vacancy count is larger than the surveys because it includes positions filled by long-term substitutes or teachers without licenses.
The department reported six thousand seven hundred and twenty-one teaching vacancies on the fortieth day of the twenty-five twenty-six school year. Seven point four percent of all positions down from seventy-one hundred the year before. Middle school vacancies fell twelve point. Two percent in high school vacancies fell nine point six.
However, elementary school vacancies rose three point three percent. Exceptional children teacher vacancies fell by ten percent. In vacancies for counselors, psychologists, and social workers, fell twenty six percent. According to some of these new details, the issue remains in classified staff. Those vacancies rose eight point nine percent.
Bus driver vacancy rates rose. Four and a half percent, roughly to where they've been since twenty twenty two, with the North Carolina. Association of Superintendents saying that bus driver numbers are soft because some districts hire workers who hire drivers rather who also work as teacher assistants. Twelve districts reported no teacher vacancies, and twenty-one reported one or fewer. Thirty-two districts reported fifty-one or more vacancies across all categories.
This has remained a major topic of discussion here in North Carolina. Carolina, especially as we continue to watch the major battles taking place in North Carolina between public and private education, school choice remaining a very a program that more and more families are taking advantage of here across the Tar Heel state. DPI's next report on the teaching profession is due to lawmakers coming up in March, so we will watch that as it comes forward during the general assembly. Long session next year. You can read continuing coverage of this over on our website carolinajournal dot com.
Look for the story with the headline: New data, NC teacher vacancies fell before new pay raise. It's five thirty six. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, one and seven point nine FM, WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good Friday morning to you.
As we have been doing since the beginning of September, once a week we take a look at what absentee by mail voting looks like here across the state of North Carolina. We continue that trend this morning as we welcome back once again Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation. He joins us here this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Andy, the clock continues to tick.
Early voting kicks off next week here in North Carolina. What is the current status of absentee by mail since we chatted last week?
Well, the same trends have been continuing. They've actually been kind of snowballing. We do we've been talking about how absentee voting has been down compared to the last couple of years. Since you know we were comparing to twenty twenty two, certainly twenty twenty four, obviously twenty twenty when a fifth of all voters voted by mail that year in North Carolina. But if you compare this year to last midterm in twenty twenty.
We're down twenty percent. That means a fifth less voters are voting by mail than they did at the same point last year. And the indications, if you look downstream at absentee ballot requests, that gap's even bigger. You're looking at about a third less absentee ballot requests so far compared to the same time in 2022, and it could go down even more because we now have an earlier dead. Deadline to request the ballot than we did four years ago, because we also have an earlier deadline to return those ballots.
So, I am expecting we're looking at at least a third less absentee by mail ballots this year compared to four years ago. And let me ask you this: that that deadline for absentee by mail continues. Obviously, you've got that process has to all be wrapped up. Those rules have changed, and ballots have to be delivered to your local county board of election by close of poll on election night, November the third. Is it fair to assume that as we get closer to the early voting period and see that kick off next Thursday, that the amount of requests for absentee by by mail balloting doesn't necessarily spike, and as other Voting options are available.
More folks maybe trend towards those things.
Well, well, actually, it continues to go up a little bit on on both fronts, and then you know it drops off rapidly at the end, of course. But people that already plan to vote by mail, vote absentee by mail, they're going to do it.
Some of them, for whatever reason, haven't put in that request yet. But one of the things, if you look at our vote tracker app over at CarolinaElections dot com, you Every week, it's a step. It's like a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more until that last week.
So it's not that that absentee balloting drops off a cliff once early voting starts. They kind of run up in tandem together, but absentee balloting is absolutely dwarfed on a day by day basis when you look at the returns compared to early voting. Yeah, and we'll see that starting on the fifteenth. Andy, have you had a chance to look at what's going on with absentee by mail in any other states across the country? I know that there are some states where almost all of the voting happens via mail.
That's in large part due to very spread around populations. But have you had a chance to see what other mail returns are looking like in some of our neighboring states? It's kind of hard to to get those in other states. A lot of other states, I will say, in North Carolina, we are really blessed because by statute and by practice, we get a lot of data from the state board of elections. There's a lot of states where you cannot get easy access to the kind of data we can get to.
However, there are a few states, and the trend universally for states that have this as an option, not as like a requirement, like some of those out west. States, they're going to still have you know pretty similar turnout for absentee ballots because it's the only game in town to vote by mail. But in states, you know, especially on the eastern half where it's an option but it's not the only option, it's all down. Every state is down that that we've been able to look at, and it goes from an extreme lowest that I saw was Pennsylvania dropped around seven percent, Georgia dropped by about half compared to twenty twenty two, and so North Carolina. We're down quite a bit, but we're kind of in the middle.
It's kind of like North Carolina's normal position. You know, we're not really extreme on either end. We're kind of in the middle of this trend. All right, Andy. I'll ask you to take a look into your crystal ball.
Then, as we wait for the the fifteenth to roll forward next Thursday, are these people that are just not voting, or in your vantage point, at least as of right now, do you think these are individuals shifting back to normalcy prior to the COVID nineteen pandemic, and will likely show up to vote during that very lengthy early voting period here in North Carolina, or on Election Day? I'm expecting that it's the latter that this is really people moving back to normal because when you had that COVID election, you see the groups that shifted the most to absentee by mail voting were the Democrats. I mean, it went heavily Democratic for for the absentee balloting, and now we're seeing this kind of reverse. The the big trend, like I said, like about twenty percent lower for statewide. Absentee voting for Democrats is 28 percent lower, so they have declined even more.
And there's no reason to suspect, since this is a Republican midterm election, that it's Democrats that are staying away from the polls.
So the indications are, and you're kind of reading the tea leaves here based on the data you have and projecting it to what you don't have. But reading those tea leaves, I think you're really looking at a shift in voting rather than a decline in voting. As it stands right now, a little bit more than twenty-one thousand votes cast in the midterm election. Forty-five percent of those coming in from those that are registered Democrats, thirty-eight percent unaffiliated, and sixteen percent Republican. Those numbers are kind of on track with what we've been talking about over the last couple of weeks here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Another quick update for us, Andy. If you would, you highlighted back a few weeks ago that. It seemed likely that Democrats would overtake Republicans for the largest party share registration here in North Carolina. We do know that unaffiliateds remain the highest, but it's not an actual party. There are no unaffiliated candidates that we are seeing across the state.
Is that trend continuing? And have you been able to really hone in on when that switch might actually happen? Yeah, it's we we had another. You know, Democrats had another good week this week. They out gained Republicans in net gain of registrations by about two thousand, and so yeah, so by.
Recent standards—that's a pretty big one-week jump for one party or another—and so every week it seems like Democrats are gaining a little bit more, a little bit more than the previous week on Republicans, and so now we're only a few thousand apart. And it looks like by the time that the state board of elections report comes out on October 18th, that will load up on a morning of October 19th. While I'm getting my morning coffee, Democrats will be ahead at that. Point. And that's pretty big news.
The GOP and Republicans made a very big deal about that in North Carolina when that happened back earlier this year.
So we'll continue to watch that trend and see if there's another push by both parties to remain at the top of the largest party share here in North Carolina. And before we let you go this morning, I do want to ask you about another election-related story that we have been tracking here over the last couple of days on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Letter from the State Board of Elections going out to about sixteen hundred voters here in North Carolina. There are some questions through the federal save database whether these individuals are legally allowed to vote and register here in North Carolina. Have you been tracking that at all?
I have been now. This is a different process than the process that had gone through the Rules Commission.
So this would be a slightly changed version of that because in that process you're going through the counties. But aside from the fact of who's actually doing this processing, it's a similar process. And the important thing to know is that nobody's going to be automatically removed because they are on this list. The State Board of Elections is going to have to. Contact these people individually.
Well, let me take a step back. First, they're going to look and see if they have any data on hand that would indicate that this person is a citizen. And if they have that, then those people will not be contacted. But on the folks that remain, they will reach out to them and let them know that they have a challenge for their ballot, so they can come and either, if they can present data when they vote. That shows that they're citizens, or if they come to the county board of elections and present information—a passport, a birth certificate, something along those lines—something that would would indicate that hey, even though I am on this list of a potential non-citizen who's registered to vote, I am in fact the citizen.
And we, you know, you get both of these on this list, so it's not necessarily that we have exactly you know fifteen hundred ninety-nine non-citizens. It could be. One thousand, it could be four hundred. We have to actually sift through on an individual basis to make sure that we get the people who are not citizens off the rolls, and the people who are citizens will be able to cast a legal ballot. You made a very important point there, and Andy.
I remember having a conversation about something over the last two years with you. The rules when you get close to the election cycle are very particular. I believe this. There's some federal law that dictates this. You can't really screw around with the voter rolls at all when you get within a certain window of an election.
Correct. Right, it's a ninety-day window, and what what they can do is now you can remove people if you have what they call individualized evidence. And we just had a Supreme Court case about this because this the reason we're doing this now is that the Supreme Court upheld at least temporarily a Trump administration initiative to use this federal database to contact the states and let them clean up their voter rolls. And what the Supreme Court said, as long as this is used on an individualized basis. That you're not just saying, well, here's two lists.
Everybody that's on both lists, they're going to get removed. You actually have to go one by one through these people to get to make sure that they're either not citizens or they are citizens and they can stay on the voter roll. Yeah, we'll continue to watch that process go out as those letters are beginning the process of being sent out here in North Carolina. Andy, as always, thanks for the information on early voting, or excuse me, on absentee by mail voting. We will do that again next week, and then transition much of our conversation leading up to November the third about early voting and what some of those numbers are looking like.
Continuing a coverage of this over on our website, carolinajournal.com. As always, we appreciate the. Update. Doctor Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. This is Rick Burgess from the Rick Burgess Show.
If you're still auto renewing your car insurance without shopping around, you are probably throwing money away. I'm telling you, go check out InsureFi in about two minutes. Totally free. You can compare quotes from over a hundred companies all in one place.
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Good morning again. It's five fifty-four. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, one hundred seven point nine FM, WBT. We've got an update on a story we've been tracking over the last couple of weeks here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. We were joined earlier this week by Mitch Kochi from the John Locke Foundation.
We've been tracking this ongoing legal challenge in the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as it relates to the FCC and the purchasing. Of advertising by political groups, and we are now learning this morning that the United States Supreme Court has blocked a lower court's latest ruling in a dispute over broadcast election ad rates. The decision announced Thursday afternoon marks a major win for the Federal Communications Commission and groups that elect Republicans to the United States House and Senate. North Carolina's Roy Cooper and three other Democrat congressional candidates have been.
Challenging FCC guidance that allows political parties and joint fundraising committees to secure the same guaranteed low ad rates as candidates during the closing weeks of the election cycle, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a two-to-one ruling on Wednesday, ordering the FCC to take a final action in the dispute by noon on Friday. The order took form, and the order that is what they were requesting. The four Fourth Circuit rejected an emergency appeal from the FCC and two Republican campaign groups to stay the order pending their appeal to the Supreme Court.
Now, the Fourth Circuit's decision is "quote hereby stayed pending further order from the undersigned or of the Court." U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in Thursday's order, with Roberts setting a 5 p.m. Saturday deadline for responses to the FCC's request for. A stay. The commission, which is being represented by U.S.
Solicitor General John Sauer, filed an application earlier Thursday with the nation's high court, seeking a stay of the Fourth Circuit decision. The National Republican Congressional Committee, known as the NRCC, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, known as the NRSC, also filed an application for stay with the nation's high court. The solicitor general wrote Thursday, "The Fourth Circuit's order is a flagrant abuse of their extraordinary writ of power and a baseless effort to circumvent a prior stay entered by this court." The United States Supreme Court issued a September the fourth order blocking an earlier Fourth Circuit ruling in the case that was a two one decision from the appellate court, which threw out guidance on election ad rates issued in March by the Federal Communication Commission's Media Bureau. That guidance called for extending the same guaranteed low ad rates to political parties and joint fundraising committees that had been offered in the past to political. Candidates.
The Fourth Circuit backed the Democrat candidate's arguments at the time, and the claiming then arguing that the guidance conflicted with a federal law.
However, now with a major step in the United States Supreme Court has blocked that lower court's ruling in that dispute. We will await additional details from that as we get ever closer to the November the third midterm election. We'll keep an eye on the details right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour and over on our website, Carolina Journal. dot com. That's going to do it for a Friday edition.
WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you Monday morning, five to six, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, one hundred seven point nine FM, WBT. This is Rick Burgess from the Rick Burgess Show. If you're still auto renewing your car insurance without shopping around, you are probably throwing money away. I'm telling you, go check out InsureFi in about two minutes.
Totally free, you can compare quotes from over a hundred companies all in one place.
Now, here's what I love: InsureFi actually monitors your rates and alerts you when prices drop, so you never miss out on a better deal. Millions of people have used it to stop overpaying, and there's no reason you shouldn't too. Do yourself a favor. See what you could save right now at Insurify.com.
