From the Trust: Closing the Coverage Gap

A theme running through Healthy Places communities’ work on substance misuse is the need for equitable access to care and mental health treatment. More than one million residents are uninsured statewide making access to care, mental health services, and treatment even more difficult.

That’s why this year, the Trust committed to investing more than $3 million to improve health care coverage for North Carolina’s families and children. As a part of that effort, the Trust supported an in-depth, county-by-county analysis of the economic and health benefits of expanding Medicaid; innovative insurance enrollment programs across the state; and cross-platform communications campaigns to share information about what will happen if the state accepts or declines Medicaid expansion.

The research suggests that North Carolina will gain 37,000 more jobs and insure 365,000 more people by expanding Medicaid. Additionally, the state would increase its business activity by $11.7 billion by 2022.

Media outlets including the Raleigh News and Observer, Greensboro News and Record, Winston-Salem Journal, and The Fayetteville Observer and others featured the research in more than 40 stories.