For several years now, medical authorities, business leaders and faith leaders â along with newspaper editorial writers â have encouraged the state legislature to institute Medicaid expansion. This would provide medical coverage for North Carolinians who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to qualify for a subsidy on the health-insurance marketplace, aka via the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Statewide, around 500,000 or 600,000 North Carolinians, many of them low-wage workers with few options, are caught in this trap. The lack of medical coverage hurts them and their children.
Adopting Medicaid expansion would benefit nearly 35,194 residents in Guilford County as well as about 25,500 in Forsyth.