#ncga: Bill tying Dale Folwell’s hands on state health plan slated for committee action Tuesday
State treasurer Dale Folwell simply wants to introduce a little transparency into the relationship between health care providers and the state health plan: share some specifics about what you’re billing the plan, work with Folwell’s team to help control costs, and continue to be part of the team.
(Management of the state health plan was passed over to the state treasurer’s office some years back by the then-Democrat controlled General Assembly to put the kibosh on legislators using the health plan as their own personal slush fund, piggy bank, and jar of favors-to-be-doled-out-at-a-later-date. In other words, it was handed off to an independent manager because our legislators were not able to oversee it in a responsible manner. In other words, to basically avoid what we’re seeing go down TODAY. )
The state employees association is fine with what Folwell is doing. The hospital lobby is not. They’ve arranged for a bill to be drafted that seriously limits Folwell’s options in managing the health plan. They’ve also found a couple of handfuls of paid-off patsies in the North Carolina House to introduce said bill.
The bill, labeled HB 184 and sponsored chiefly by Rep. Josh “International Travel for Legislative Duties” Dobson, was forwarded to the House Committee on Health, which is chaired by Rep. Greg Murphy — who also happens to be running for Congress in the Third District.
HB 184 is on the calendar for Tuesday’s meeting of Murphy’s Health Committee. According to the House website, if HB 184 passes muster in Murphy’s committee, it goes on to the Insurance Committee, and then to Rep. David Lewis’s Rules Committee before heading to the House floor.
What happens with this bill will tell us a lot about where the NCGOP stands. Do we still have conservative leadership, or do we have whores addicted to special interest dollars who will drop us in a minute to go cater to a lobbyist’s needs?
If a committee chairman opposes a bill, they have the power to hold it in committee, as has been done by Senate committee chairmen on pro-gun bills. Greg Murphy bringing this up for a vote as committee chairman tells you a lot more about where he stands on Folwell than how he may ultimately cast his individual vote. Murphy still has time to remove it from the agenda if he backs our State Treasurer. I hope he does so. Whether he backs Folwell or helps strip his powers will be a big factor in whether he is worthy of consideration for Congress.
But it is more than just Folwell himself. This is legislation that puts the special interests ahead of the taxpayers. The state has massive unfunded liabilities in the State Health Plan that Folwell is trying to fix, that will ultimately bleed the taxpayers if they are not fixed. The special interests want to kick the can down the road while those unfunded liabilities that the taxpayers are ultimately responsible for just continue to balloon.
The 3rd Congressional District Republican Executive Committee unanimously passed a resolution supporting Treasurer Folwell against the special interests. I hope chairman Murphy can take a hint that grassroots Republicans are strongly behind Folwell and against the greedy special interests. The ball is in Murphy’s court and I hope in the end he will stand with the taxpayers and with grassroots Republicans and take this special interest bill off his committee agenda for the rest of this session.
North Carolina also needs to drain the swamp. I’m monitoring every vote in every committee for this bill. Every Republican who votes in favor of it needs to be primaried.
Committee chairmen who let this bill be voted on by their committee should be at the very top of your list. They have the power to bury this awful special interest bill and should do it by simply taking it off the agenda for the rest of the session.
I hope there will be transparency in the committee votes, with a recorded vote instead of a voice vote, but it is up to the committee chairmen to set that standard of transparency.
AMEN !!!
Dale Folwell is a problem solver. He previously saved employers huge sums in payments to unemployment insurance. He is now working on the plan to save the State Health Plan taxpayer money while maintaining the health care benefits to state employees. Moneyed medical people (and the legislators whose campaigns they fund) are trying to stop him with this disgusting HB-184. We the people need to let Greg Murphy know WE DO NOT WANT HB-184, and to please KILL IT in his committee !!!
Dale Folwell has done such a great job for this state, that Republicans MUST support this man of integrity and honor. We are watching our legislators who oppose him.
Dale Folwell does his job well and draws the ire of the Republican legislature. The UNC Board of Governors fails miserably at its job of conservative education reform and yet most of its members get reappointed for additional terms. Go figure.