No More Socialized Medicine

RALEIGH (By John Hood, Carolina Journal Online) – As the health care market continues to adapt to medical, economic, and political trends, North Carolina lawmakers need to decide what role they envision for state government in the delivery of health care.

And they better do it quickly.

Some recognize the urgency of the issue. When Republican leaders in Raleigh drew up their state budget plans for the coming fiscal year, they reduced taxpayer subsidies for the University of North Carolina’s hospital system, called UNC Health Care. The subsidies are intended to defray some of the cost of uncompensated charity care at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill. But other hospitals in the state also rack up unpaid bills for charity care and don’t get a special reimbursement from state taxpayers.