Off Target, Out of Touch- HHS Oversight Committee

The Joint Health and Human Services Legislative Oversight Committee met this week. The agenda was focused on IT and database projects at the Department. In a six-hour meeting the $139 million Medicaid budget shortfall did not even make the agenda. WRAL's coverage of the meeting is here.

Disability Rights NC and other groups concerned about funding for vital Medicaid services visited the offices of legislative leadership who described the budget shortfall variously as "a cash flow problem," and "the result of mismanagement." Legislators were notified during the budget process by the Governor and advocates that the budget they set would be impossible to implement. It turns out we were right.

Disability Rights NC, together with 23 other organizations, has called on the legislature to appropriate funds to fill the gap.