Dr. Beverly Edwards speaks at a Raleigh press conference at which health providers and advocates called on U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis to help stop planned cuts to Medicaid on April 17, 2025 (Photo: Progress NC Action YouTube video)
A coalition of progressive advocacy groups joined with local health care providers at a Raleigh press conference Thursday to encourage Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis to protect Medicaid amid proposed federal cuts.
The event, which was organized by the Coalition Against Right-Wing Extremism (CARE), was intended to draw attention to a plan developed by congressional Republicans to squeeze $880 billion in cuts from Medicaid, a program that provides access to health care for about 3.1 million North Carolinians. Of that number, about 20% (650,000 people) are covered by Medicaid as a result of the program expansion state lawmakers enacted in 2023, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Beverly Edwards lives in Ahoskie in northeastern North Carolina. A pediatrician serving families in rural areas of the state, she said she sees every day how essential Medicaid is to keeping children and families safe.
“In rural areas, access to health care is already hard to come by,” Edwards said. “There are fewer jobs that offer employee-sponsored health care than in some other areas. That means if people lose their health care through Medicaid, they don’t have any alternatives.”
In Edwards’ community, hospitals rely heavily on Medicaid payments in order to keep their doors open. If there are cuts, the effects would be felt across the area.
“Everyone in our community would be forced to travel even further for emergency care, prenatal care, or surgery, if they can get the care at all,” she said.
Alexandra Sirota, executive director of the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, has been at her organization for 15 years.
During that time, she’s documented the way budget and tax policy choices impact opportunity for the state.
“North Carolinians want an economy that works for us all,” Sirota said. “Our elected leaders, through their policy choices, have the power to do just that.”
She called out Tillis for prioritizing wealthy and profitable corporations over North Carolinians and their families.
“We know that Senator Tillis has the power to stop these cuts now, before they ripple through our state and our daily lives, affecting whether North Carolinians can receive medical care, whether the nearest hospital can serve all our families, whether people in our community can afford healthy meals, and whether we can keep our jobs,” she said.
Research released recently by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute found that imposing work requirements on Medicaid enrollees — a cost-cutting idea under consideration in Congress and recently endorsed by North Carolina Republican legislators — would result in as many as 30% of the state’s Medicaid expansion population losing coverage.
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