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 Newsline 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 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).

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 Newsline 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.

Sarah Ovaska (Photo: SCSJ)

It seldom comes as a surprise when laws negatively impacting people of color are enacted in the American South and a new report from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice provides the latest list of sobering examples.

The report, which is entitled “State of the South: Voting Rights Under Assault,” documents how voters of color (as well as young voters and those with disabilities) have been systematically targeted with laws and policies that block or discourage their participation in democracy. And sadly, the report also identifies a bevy of sobering statistics which show how voter participation among these groups is abysmally low. Recently, to better understand the situation and the steps necessary to reverse these troubling trends, NC Newsline caught up with the author of the report, SOLVE Senior communications strategist, Sarah Ovaska.

Meech Carter (Photo: NCLCV)

As Tropical Storm Debby reminded North Carolinians in powerful and sobering fashion once again earlier this month, climate change continues to progress and grow more serious. While no one can say that any particular storm is a byproduct of climate change, scientists do say loudly and without equivocation that climate change is making hurricanes and other tropical systems (not to mention other problematic climate phenomena like thunderstorm outbreaks, droughts, and even winter snowstorms) more frequent and more intense.

Fortunately, as NC Newsline was reminded in a recent extended conversation with Meech Carter, the Clean Energy Campaigns Director for the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, while the situation is very real and urgent, there are many things that we can and should be doing to tackle the problem, and thanks to some critical investments flowing from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, North Carolina is taking some important initial steps.

In Part One of our conversation with Carter, we talked about the undeniable reality of climate change and how recent investments that have flowed from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act are making a welcome difference in North Carolina.

In Part Two of our conversation, we turned our attention to the battle to reduce carbon pollution from fossil fuels and how, despite having some promising goals, North Carolina’s giant monopoly energy provider, Duke Energy, has a built-in incentive to embrace costly solutions and has, unfortunately, been seeking to delay necessary action to speed the shift to renewable energy.

Thomas Mills (Courtesy photo)

It seemed almost unimaginable less than a month ago, but as they head into their national convention this week, U.S. Democrats are riding a wave of voter enthusiasm for presidential nominee – Vice President Kamala Harris – and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Indeed, polls in key swing states that showed Republican nominee Donald Trump leading just weeks ago have now flipped.

So why have things shifted so quickly and dramatically? Will it last? And does it mean that Trump is now vulnerable in North Carolina? These are just some of the questions that veteran North Carolina political consultant and observer Thomas Millis discussed with NC Newsline during an extended recent conversation. In Part One of our chat Mills explained, among other things, why he believes that Harris’s rise is, ultimately, a reflection of what American voters – particularly younger voters – want.

In Part Two of our chat, we continued our discussion of national politics, while also turning our attention to some high-profile North Carolina races.

Read more of Mills’ analysis at the substack PoliticsNC.

Noel Nickle, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

It’s been 18 years now since North Carolina last put a person to death as punishment for a crime – a time period in which a fast-growing number of states and countries have abolished the death penalty. Nonetheless, the death penalty remains on the state’s statute books and 136 people still reside on Death Row. And that fact continues to spur an active and growing movement of activists who say the time has long since passed for the state to end what they argue is a barbaric and obsolete punishment.

Right now, the group’s efforts revolve around calling on Gov. Roy Cooper to use his constitutional power to commute the sentences of those 136 individuals to life in prison before he leaves office at the end of the year, and recently we got a chance to learn more about these efforts in a conversation with the director of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Noel Nickle.

Senator Natalie Murdock (Photo: NCGA)

The North Carolina General Assembly has mostly wrapped up the business its leaders intend to deal with in 2024, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some important matters that got left on the table. Take the vexing issue of maternal health. For decades North Carolina has experienced big and persistent problems in this area – especially for moms of color.

For some time now, Senator Natalie Murdock of Durham and Chatham Counties has been trying to convince Republican leaders to appropriate modest sums to tackle this issue, but once again this year she ran into a brick wall. Fortunately, she’s not giving up on her efforts to raise this issue or her concerns about the highly questionable funding that GOP lawmakers have directed to so-called crisis pregnancy centers.

In Part One of our recent extended conversation with Murdock, we discussed several sobering facts about maternal health and mortality in North Carolina and her ongoing efforts to convince Republican legislative leaders to allow consideration of a bill known as the Momnibus Act that would tackle the issue.

In Part Two of our chat, we turned to the subject of politics and, in particular, the new levels of enthusiasm she’s seeing among many North Carolina Democrats and Independents in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside and pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. And as Sen. Murdock explained, while the change at the top of the ticket is making a big impact, the fall election is still likely to come down to which side is more successful in building an on-the-ground get-out-the-vote effort over the coming weeks.

Meredith College political scientist and pollster David McLennan (File photo)

Just weeks after President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will not seek reelection and hours after she formally secured the nomination of the Democratic Party as its presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris selected Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate this past week. It’s the Harris campaign’s hope that Walz’s everyman appeal and record as a military vet will appeal to voters in several states in the Midwest and South.

Will it work? As we learned in a conversation after the announcement with Meredith College political science professor and pollster David McLennan, it’s too early to say whether the Harris-Walz ticket is bound for victory, but it does appear that the Democrats have very quickly made up significant ground on GOP nominees Donald Trump and JD Vance.

Colin Seeberger (Courtesy photo)

If you’ve been hearing a lot about something called Project 2025 of late, 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 second Trump administration. The team that wrote it includes scores of former Trump staffers and prominent Republican leaders.

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. This week’s edition of News & Views is dedicated to an examination of Project 2025 and we commence our review with an overview conversation with the senior adviser for Communications at the Washington, DC-based Center for American Progress, Colin Seeberger.

In Part One of our recent conversation with Seeberger of the Center for American Progress, we examined how Project 2025 — a detailed and often frightening blueprint for remaking the U.S. government under a conservative president – would alter and threaten basic and long-established norms of

In Part two of our chat, 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.

Donald Cohen (Courtesy photo)

Project 2025 is a detailed policy blueprint from the far-right Heritage Foundation that its authors hope will serve as a lengthy “to do” list for a second Trump administration. One disturbing part of the plan that’s gotten somewhat less attention than others is its emphasis on privatizing core public services – that is, turning things like the National Weather Service and the Transportation Security Administration over to profit-making businesses. And recently to try and better understand such schemes and why they pose such a threat to public wellbeing,  NC Newsline caught up with one of the nation’s foremost experts on (and critics of) the privatization of government services – he’s the founder and executive director of the group In the Public Interest, Donald Cohen.