News & Views

Kody Kinsley, outgoing secretary of the NC Department of Health and Human Services. (Photo: DHHS)

It’s a sobering fact that one of the largest sources of consumer debt in North Carolina and across the nation is unpaid medical bills. Of course, no one gets sick or accumulates healthcare debt on purpose, but for most average households – including those with health insurance coverage – even a brief hospital stay can generate massive bills that can be all but impossible to pay off. This fact has led to North Carolinians having billions of dollars of medical debt hanging over their heads.

Happily, and to its great credit, however, Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration is doing something about the problem. It recently unveiled an innovative program under which all of the state’s hospitals will forgive billions of dollars in consumer debt in exchange for some new reimbursements from the federal government. It’s a true-win-win situation for all involved and recently we got a chance to have an extended conversation with the administration official behind this exciting, first-of-its kind initiative, state Health and Human Services Secretary, Kody Kinsley.

In Part One of our recent extended conversation with North Carolina’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kody Kinsley, we discussed the subject of medical debt and the exciting new initiative his office has spearheaded to get the state’s hospitals to forgive billions of dollars of debt and provide millions of North Carolinians with a fresh start.

In Part Two of our conversation, we turned our attention to another pair of timely topics from the world of health and healthcare – the encouraging progress the state is making in enrolling hundreds of thousands of people in the newly expanded Medicaid program, and the continued importance of vaccines in safeguarding public health – both to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and any number of other dangerous diseases (from measles to Mpox). This is a rebroadcast of an interview that originally aired September 1, 2024.

Amber Gavin (Courtesy photo)

It’s been more than two years now since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion care and more than a year since North Carolina enacted a 12-week ban on the procedure – this on top of a raft of other burdensome and medically unnecessary restrictions. So, what can we say about what’s been happening since?

National statistics indicate that abortions overall are up, but we also know that anti-abortion activists and political candidates are still seeking and promising a national ban. Recently, in order to try and make sense of this confusing situation we caught up with one of our state’s most knowledgeable experts, the Vice President of Advocacy and Operations at the healthcare provider, A Woman’s Choice, Amber Gavin.  This interview originally aired September 1, 2024.

As Americans vote in the 2024 national election, few issues are more prominent than the national economy. For the most part – especially in comparison to elections past – the economic news is extremely good. Earlier this month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report showing a strong labor market with growing wages, a lower unemployment rate, and the addition of 254,000 jobs to the economy.

And still, despite the good news, many people have yet to benefit from the rising tide. Recently in order to get a handle on the state of the economy – the good news and the continued challenges — I caught up with States Newsroom national economy reporter, Casey Quinlan.

Colin Seeberger (Courtesy photo)

If you’ve been hearing a lot this election season about something called Project 2025, there’s good reason. It’s a 922-page policy blueprint from the far-right Heritage Foundation that its authors hope will serve as a lengthy “to do” list for a new Republican presidential administration.

And in a host of vitally important areas – from education to the environment to reproductive freedom to the very future of democracy – it’s a frightening scheme to behold. Several weeks back I got a chance to discuss Project 2025 with the senior adviser for Communications at the Washington, DC-based Center for American Progress, Colin Seeberger.

In Part One of our chat, we examined how Project 2025 would alter and threaten basic and long-established norms of American democracy.

In Part Two, we examined some of the many dramatic changes that Project 2025 would inflict on an array of core rights and public services – including K-12 education, the social safety net, reproductive freedom, and the nation’s response to the global climate emergency.

Common Cause NC Sailor Jones (Backdrop Photo: Getty Images)

Amazingly, the November 5th general election is underway in North Carolina. Absentee voting by mail is already taking place and early in-person voting starts October 17. And with those facts in mind, there are a lot of changes that state lawmakers have made that make voting a bit more of a challenge, and that’s a situation that’s been rendered even more complicated for many voters in western North Carolina by Hurricane Helene.

Happily, some wise observers and advocates are carefully tracking the changes and translating them into plain English for average folks, and this past week I caught up with one of those experts – Common Cause of North Carolina Associate Director Sailor Jones.

State Rep. Pricey Harrison of Guilford County (Photo: Clayton Henkel)

The devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina is rightfully provoking calls for action by state and federal lawmakers, and one area in which one hopes such demands bear fruit is in planning and prevention. As the New York Times recently reported, state Republican legislative leaders have repeatedly blocked legislation and rules, and overrode gubernatorial vetoes, designed to protect against the impacts of hurricanes and other storms.

Thankfully, advocates have long identified and championed policies that would better prepare our state for the storms that will inevitably come our way (and also combat the climate change that’s helping to drive them) and one of the most knowledgeable is State Rep. Pricey Harrison of Guilford County. And as Harrison told me when I caught up with her this past week, it’s her hope that Hurricane Helene will finally spur her colleagues to action in this long-neglected area.

Rep. Lindsey Prather discusses the damage to western North Carolina caused by Hurricane Helene. (Photo of Biltmore Village by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

As we’re all painfully aware by now, the last several days have been among the darkest in modern North Carolina history. The cause, of course, was Helene – a devastating hurricane-turned-tropical-storm that wreaked havoc across western North Carolina with unprecedented rainfall and flooding. Numerous communities suffered massive damage, and some were essentially wiped off the map.

The storm caused scores of fatalities and many, many people remain unaccounted for. And this is especially true in Buncombe County and the city of Asheville where the challenges for relief efforts posed by geography, downed trees, and washed out roads have been enormous. In an effort to learn more, NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield managed to catch up with Buncombe County State Rep. Lindsey Prather, who discussed her community’s plight, its immediate needs, and the necessity for state lawmakers to fund what promises to be a lengthy recovery.

State legislators returns to Raleigh October 9th.

Trevor Higgins (Courtesy photo CAP)

While the bad news from Hurricane Helene has been unrelenting in recent days, one small glimmer of hope – or at least a path forward — can be found in the science surrounding Helene and other extreme weather events. Simply put: we know for a fact that warming oceans and the increasingly warm and humid weather that we see in many parts of the world as the result of climate change are making hurricanes more frequent and severe.

And as NC Newsline was reminded earlier this week in a conversation with Trevor Higgins, the Senior Vice President of Energy and Environment at the Center for American Progress, there are numerous important step we can and must take to respond to the climate crisis by transitioning to a sustainable energy economy and strengthening public infrastructure. What’s more, happily, Higgins told me, these are both areas in which the Biden-Harris administration has already made enormous recent progress.

Jason Husser (Photo: Elon.edu)

It’s hard to believe, but Election Day is now less than a month away. Indeed, many people have already voted by mail and early in-person voting starts October 17th. So, what do we know about what’s likely to happen? That’s a question several different pollsters have been trying to divine in recent weeks, including Elon University Poll Director Jason Husser. And as Newsline learned in a conversation Husser, two very different North Carolina races currently stand out – the presidential race where the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump seems destined to come down to the wire and the gubernatorial contest, where Attorney General Josh Stein has pulled ahead of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson by a significant margin.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler (Photo: AFL-CIO)

North Carolina is and will, for the foreseeable future, remain a so-called “right-to-work” state in which laws make it extremely tough build workplace unions. Despite this enormous barrier, however, there’s growing evidence that interest in and support for organized labor in our state is enjoying a bit of a renaissance.

With wages in many companies remaining low and flat, even as corporate profits and executive pay have soared, many North Carolina workers– especially younger workers – are rethinking unions. This reality was on display recently in Raleigh as the state AFL-CIO hosted a large and energetic gathering at its annual convention. And right after she delivered a keynote address at the event, NC Newsline caught up with the national president of the AFL-CIO, Liz Shuler.