N.C. Sen. Benton Sawrey, R-Johnston, landed an influential role in his second term this session as co-chair of the Senate’s committees on healthcare.
He joined this week’s WUNC Politics Podcast to talk about his efforts to address the unusually high costs of healthcare in North Carolina, including a recent bill to limit insurance coverage mandates and some other proposals in the works for later this year.
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
What do you see as the big priorities for the Senate on the healthcare front this year?
“It’s going to all be about cost this year. There’s some recent information that came out that showed that North Carolina ranked number 50 in the nation with respect to healthcare costs. We’re paying the highest health premiums in the nation, which is particularly concerning considering how expensive healthcare is in the United States generally, and then not necessarily corresponding with outcome.
“We have parts of our state that are lagging behind the rest of the country with respect to infant mortality, maternal mortality, access to care, things like that. We need to really drill down and examine why we’re paying so much and not getting the results that should come along with that.”
You co-sponsored a bill that already passed the Senate to get at the affordability issue, that would restrict government mandates on what insurance plans have to cover. What’s the rationale behind going at it from that direction?
“That’s not the only tool in the toolbox, that’s one big piece of the puzzle here. What we’ve examined is that government mandates with insurance are having an effect on driving up costs. Anytime there’s government intervention, it increases costs, increases regulation, increases obligation, and ultimately gets passed on to consumer and drives that up.”
Do you see other bills in the works?
“I think you’ll see some (Certificate of Need) legislation that comes out this session. I think a complete CON repeal probably would not get across the finish line at this point, but there’s definitely an opportunity, especially for (reducing regulatory handles to adding) major medical equipment pieces.
“I think you’ll see a bill dropped on Collaborative Pharmacy Practice, where you can have certain qualified pharmacists practicing in a team-based setting with some of our physicians and other people. They can do medication management and help with that cost and access in some of our rural communities.”
Some of your counterparts on the House Health Committee have been discussing what might happen here in North Carolina if federal Medicaid funding gets cut. Have there been any preliminary discussions of what that might look like?
“We’re definitely having conversations about it. It’s an issue that ultimately is not within our control as to what happens at the congressional level at this point.
“We have asked DHHS to discuss some contingencies and ideas about how they would address it if there are tweaks. At the $880 billion cut level that I think they’re discussing, I believe the state share to North Carolina could potentially be about $27 billion, so it’s a big issue that would affect a lot of people in North Carolina.
“To keep (the Medicaid expansion) population in place, it would require commitment from the state of several billion more dollars that we don’t have. So we would have to have some tough conversations about what that would look like in case that federal share was reduced.”
Sawrey also spoke about his bill to help disabled veterans afford homeownership, a new “sports caucus” and the upcoming budget season at the legislature. Listen to the full conversation on the WUNC Politics Podcast.
