FILE - North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley, right, speaks while Gov. Roy Cooper listens at an Executive Mansion news conference in Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 25, 2023. Enrollment in North Carolina's new Medicaid coverage for low-income adults has surpassed 400,000 in the expansion programs first four months, Cooper announced on Monday, April 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson, File)
Many enrollees are young adults or disproportionately live in rural communities, according to the news release, which added that expansion recipients already have benefited from over 700,000 prescriptions and generated more than $11 million in dental service claims.
"People aren't just getting covered, they're getting care," DHHS Secretary Kody Kinsley said in a video on social media.
Since becoming governor in 2017, Cooper, a Democrat, lobbied hard for the Republican-controlled General Assembly to accept expansion. The legislature and Cooper enacted an expansion law in March 2023, but a separate state budget law also had to be approved.
The federal government pays 90% of the cost of expansion, with the remainder paid by an increased assessment on hospitals.
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Enrollment also means North Carolina is poised to receive a $1.8 billion bonus over two years from the federal government. DHHS told lawmakers last month that it had already distributed $198 million of that money to nearly 50 government, health, education or nonprofit initiatives.
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