NC Treasurer Dale Folwell should put down the stones he’s throwing at NC hospitals
Hospitals are experiencing the worst financial storm in history. After almost three years of COVID response, our doctors and nurses are burned out, and many of our patients are more sick after having delayed care during the pandemic. Like many others in our community, our hospitals need a lifeline.
Instead of throwing that lifeline, some in elected office would like to focus on a moment in time two years ago when members of Congress did throw a lifeline. They appropriated millions of dollars through the Provider Relief Fund to stabilize hospital finances at a time when our hospitals were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the pandemic and our state elected leaders asked that we stop performing the elective/non-essential procedures which provide the revenue we need to stay open. For those funds, our hospitals remain thankful.
Our hospitals also have obligations that require them to have reserves. These reserves are needed to guarantee our debt (borrowed money) to pay for new facilities, programs, and technology. These reserves are used to expand access to care and to attract and retain the best talent.
As seen over the past three years, these reserves are essential and allow us to cover the worst catastrophes, such as a global pandemic or a hurricane. It would be fiscally irresponsible to spend those funds when others are available. It would also be fiscally irresponsible to let those funds stagnate. So we invest them, they grow, and we get accused of enriching ourselves. But those funds belong to the community and are used to provide healthcare to all who are in need.
Those Provider Relief Funds are long gone. We are now having to dangerously dip into the reserves that took us decades to build. Those patients who come to us sicker now stay longer. Their insurance pays less. Our workforce is tired. They deserve better.
We all deserve better. We deserve elected officials who put down their stones and offer a helping hand.
Instead of using his bully pulpit to tear down that state’s largest hospital systems, N.C. Treasurer Dale Folwell should try picking up the mantle that some fellow Republican leaders have taken in hand. Our state has options that are readily available. We already pay for Medicaid expansion, but those tax dollars are being sent to New York, California and Virginia. Folwell should lend his voice that effort. His support would go a long way.
The state treasurer serves the schoolteachers and state employees on the front lines. Imagine their relief when uninsured citizens they serve suddenly have access to the resources to get and stay healthy without having to miss work. Their students could finally receive the interventions they need so that they could focus on being students, rather than their physical and psychological health.
We all deserve better. Folwell could support those he serves by talking with fellow Republicans on the benefits of Medicaid expansion and stop attacking the hospitals who provide the very beds in which our talented nurses and doctors have given lifesaving care to our sickest COVID patients and all North Carolinians.
Steve Lawler is President and CEO of the North Carolina Healthcare Association, which advocates for hospitals and other healthcare facilities across the state.
