ICYMI: WRAL Editorial Takes Senator Tillis to Task for Weak Record on Unemployment and Medicaid

ICYMI: WRAL EditorialTakes Senator Tillis to Task for Weak Unemployment Insurance, Medicaid Expansion

"North Carolina's Neglected Unemployed Need and Deserve Better, Now...This is Simple – Either You Care About Our Unemployed and Our Uninsured, or You Don’t.”

As House Speaker, Tillis Slashed Unemployment Benefits and Stopped Medicaid Expansion

Raleigh, NC -- A scathing WRAL editorial published this morning rightly takes Senator Thom Tillis to task for his leading role in making life more difficult for struggling North Carolinians as they seek to access both unemployment benefits and life-saving health care:

WRAL wrote:

“When it comes to demonstrating concern for working North Carolinians, here’s what Senate Leader Phil Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore and former state House Speaker and now U.S. Sen Thom Tillis have to show:

• “The lowest in-the-nation unemployment insurance system – leaving the flood of newly unemployed with unreasonably small weekly benefits and for very few weeks...

• “By being one of just 14 states that has not expanded Medicaid – that already has left half-a-million North Carolinians without access to health care and worsened the already shaky status of rural hospitals – has left those who just days ago had health coverage and now suddenly none with little ways to afford care they may need.

“That lack of concern and preparedness has left nearly half a million hard working North Carolinians, who never dreamt of being out of a job, applying for unemployment benefits as a result of policy orders relating to the COVID-19 outbreak. They may be victims of a legislature that too often sought to comfort the wealthy at the expense of the state’s working families, children and the disadvantaged.

“The 2013 reforms to the state’s system, in reality “was an ideologically inspired effort to effectively eliminate unemployment insurance.” It appears to have been working.

...

“Addressing administrative processes, however, will not fix the fundamental issue – North Carolina’s unemployment insurance benefits are less than they were a decade ago and fail to provide the help that is needed today.

…

“This is simple – either you care about our unemployed and our uninsured, or you don’t.”

Read the full editorial here.

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About Piedmont Rising

Piedmont Rising is a 501 (c)4 issue advocacy organization built by and for North Carolinians to advocate for lower insurance premiums and prescription drug costs and to ensure that more people have access to safe and affordable health care. Through grassroots organizing, education, and engagement, we are amplifying our health care stories and holding our elected officials accountable to the people, and issues they were elected to represent. www.piedmontrising.org