According to a report done by Families USA, the percentage of North Carolina workers without health insurance dropped 15 percent in 2014, which was below the national average of 19 percent.

Families USA Dee Mahan said top states saw their uninsured workers drop 36 percent.

“During the first full year of the ACA, virtually every state saw a decrease in uninsured workers,” she said. “However, the rate of that decrease was substantially higher, nearly twice as great, in states that expanded Medicaid that year.”

Under the Affordable Care Act, states can add people to their Medicaid program that make no more than 138 percent of the federal poverty rate.

The federal government will pay the entire cost of the expansion until next year, when it will start gradually dropping to 90 percent in 2020.

North Carolina was one of the 24 states that did not expand Medicaid in 2014, and remains one of the 16 states that have yet to expand.

All but two of the states that had their uninsured workers drop at a rate above the national average were expansion states.

Cara Stewart from Kentucky Equal Justice Center said expansion has gone well in her home state.

“We saw our uninsured rate plummet,” she said. “The most interesting thing I think we figured out was that the majority of people who became insured through Medicaid expansion were workers.”

Tennessee state senator Richard Briggs said his state is one of those that have not accepted the expansion.

Briggs is a cardiac surgeon and said he frequently sees patients come through the emergency room at his hospital with heart attacks because they could not afford their necessary medication.

“For a few dollars, maybe a couple of hundred dollars a month, they could’ve taken their medication,” he said. “Instead they build up a bill that somebody is going to have to pay for that could be anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 depending on how sick they are after surgery.”

Over the summer Governor Pat McCrory said he would like to expand Medicaid, but would like a plan tailored to North Carolina.

However, an expansion would have to pass the state legislature before reaching the governor’s office.

To see the full report, click here.

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