More than 3 million North Carolinians rely on Medicaid, and Gov. Josh Stein has been dishonest with every one of them. He and his political appointees chose to slash provider rates to manufacture a Medicaid crisis and pin it on Republicans. But his political gambit didn’t land on the General Assembly. It landed on patients and providers who are now paying the price for his unnecessary, politically driven cuts.
The reality is that Stein has no one to blame but himself for this crisis, grabbing headlines he hopes will hide the facts.
FACT: The N.C. House passed three clean, stand-alone bills to fund the Medicaid rebase and stop Stein’s cuts.
In September, the House approved Senate Bill 403, providing $192 million, bringing this year’s total Medicaid rebase investment to $792 million.
Weeks later, House Bill 491 appropriated another $190 million from the Medicaid contingency fund.
And finally, we passed the Healthcare Investment Act, a clean version of the Senate’s proposal that strips out unrelated spending and fully funds the rebase with another $192 million.
Our leadership and members have been clear: We are ready, willing and already acting to fix Stein’s manufactured crisis. We will not sit back as the governor’s political games jeopardize care for our state’s patients.
FACT: State health officials confirm that any one of these three bills would compel the administration to drop its cuts.
FACT: Stein’s own DHHS admits Medicaid is fully funded through at least April 2026, and the House has already committed to providing additional support when it’s actually needed.
FACT: Stein’s administration now faces multiple lawsuits over its political cuts, and a Wake County judge has already blocked part of their reductions.
Despite all of this, Stein demanded that the General Assembly convene for an emergency session this week, knowing full well that his call was unconstitutional, unjustified and purely political. He then accused the legislature of “refusing to work,” trying to turn his own constitutional overreach into a talking point.
As our leadership made clear, the General Assembly is already in session, and the governor cannot hijack the legislature’s calendar just because he wants a political stage. His Medicaid cuts don’t meet the constitutional threshold for an extraordinary session because there is no extraordinary crisis. There is only the crisis he fabricated for political effect.
House lawmakers have governed with consistency: three clean funding bills, a clear commitment to keep Medicaid funded, and an open door to resolve this issue the moment Stein decides to stop using North Carolina families as political props. If the governor simply reversed the cuts he imposed, his emergency would evaporate overnight.
Stein has no one to blame but himself for his self-made Medicaid crisis. Stein himself has confessed to the damage his administration has inflicted on thousands of our most vulnerable North Carolinians, saying, “These rate cuts hurt providers and reduce access to critical health care services for the people of North Carolina.”
But while Stein plays politics with people’s health care, the House has done its job repeatedly and responsibly.
The facts are undeniable: There is no Medicaid funding crisis in North Carolina; there is only a credibility crisis for Stein. And while he continues fearmongering and manufacturing chaos, the N.C. House will continue standing up for the people of our great state.
Reps. Larry Potts, Tim Reeder, Donny Lambeth and Donna White are chairs of the N.C. House Health Committee.
