North Carolina NOW Legislative Update – 30 August 2021

HB 608 has passed the Senate, this bill makes significant reforms in the treatment of women prisoners. We are expecting unconstitutional districts from the legislative majority again. Then more on the budget process and what happened two years ago.

North Carolina NOW Legislative Actions – 23 August 2021

Take actions on up to 4 issues. In fact, for each issue, you can write your representative, write a letter to the editor, or both!

North Carolina NOW Legislative Update – 16 August 2021

Senate Bill 35 has passed the House and has been placed on the Senate calendar for final approval on August 16. This bill raises the marriage age to 16 under all circum-stances, including pregnancy, requires parental consent for marriage at age 16 or 17, and further requires that there must be no more than a 4-year age difference between the parties to allow marriage under age 18.  The bill is expected to pass. Currently, children as young as 14 can marry in this state, a situation that has made North Carolina a go-to state for child marriages.  Last year, for example, two-thirds of marriage license applications in Buncombe County, a county that includes Asheville, were from out-of staters seeking to marry underage partners.  We are finally ready to close the book on that ugly chapter.  Also talking about state budget, Governor Cooper’s priorities, and how state budget defectors take leverage away from the governor.

Actions You Can Take NOW! (5/2021)

Here is an update women’s issues and health with actions. Any you can do are helpful! Women’s Issues In the NC Legislature, there are 2 terrible anti-abortion bills that made crossover, which means they are continuing on in the legislature (aka the bills didn’t die as they should have). NC NOW has a few actions

Even More Benefits From Expanding Medicaid NOW!

There is one thing that would significantly help North Carolinians in every part of the state – Medicaid expansion. Expanding Medicaid would be a huge win – providing more health care in every county, more health care jobs in every county, pump billions of federal money into the state, provide support for rural hospitals and people, and also bring ripple effect benefits to communities around the state.  As you may know, past Governor Pat McCrory signed away the governor’s ability to expand Medicaid as one of the first things he did in 2013, so the NC Legislature has control of that. There is more pressure for the NC Legislature to expand Medicaid since the federal pandemic relief bill from March 2021 contains even more great incentives to add on to all the other wins NC would get by expanding Medicaid. More at North Carolina Health News – https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2021/03/18/medicaid-expansion-incentives-pandemic-relief-bill/. The new American Rescue Plan includes “substantial incentives for states to expand Medicaid, as well as [providing] spending boosts to improve care for new moms, people with disabilities.”  Expanding Medicaid would inherently help more women (and their children/families), since more women fall into this working poor space.

Lobbyist Involvement In Fundraiser Causes Cancellation, More Articles

There are so many important and interesting articles, we don’t want to lose track of them. In North Carolina, we have the lobbyist involved in the fundraiser being former Raleigh mayor Tom Fetzer, who told contacts that the fundraiser recipient could succeed House speaker Tim Moore. The 2 year anniversary of the murders at UNC-Charlotte

More Letters on Need for Medicaid Expansion

NC NOW is capturing some articles on the need for Medicaid expansion here. This is not an extensive list, since NC has refused to expand Medicaid for over 10 years. Since the state legislature again refused to expand Medicaid during a session that began April 28, 2020, there has been another set of articles. Find

Take Action on Medicaid Expansion

We Must Expand Medicaid! Read about why, and take action here.

Legislature Refuses Gift of Medicaid Expansion Again – 5/5/20

The pandemic is exposing people and institutions who were barely getting by and now will fail with insufficient assistance. Rural hospitals were already doing badly, and now are doing worse. Yet, the NC legislature continues to refuse the gift of Medicaid Expansion which would alleviate health and economic problems across in every county if implemented fully.

Take Action Urging NC leadership to Expand Medicaid ASAP (2020)

Rural hospitals are cutting services and even worse, closing. Billions of dollars meant to support health care in NC have been sent to other states, to those states smart enough to take advantage of great deal to expand Medicaid. The NCGA leadership needs to stop hurting NC’s people and economy. Expand Medicaid NOW! The Coronavirus is exposing how close to the edge many people live.