To the Editor:

Mr. Patrick Gleason, we agree with part of your guest column that appeared in The Smoky Mountain News two weeks ago (www.smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/27352). There is no such thing as free money. Everything comes at a cost, our tax dollars do not come free, they come right out of our pockets, and they aren’t to be wasted by this legislature. That is why I will not stop working to expand Medicaid in North Carolina until we get it done. We should all be sick and tired of the waste of our federal tax dollars that we endure every single year that we refuse to expand Medicaid. 

North Carolinians pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, and we pay our federal taxes! Our Legislature is just refusing to let $5 billion of those tax dollars come back home. 

Every single year, North Carolina pays more than $2.5 billion in federal taxes for Medicaid expansion. That’s over $5 billion in this two-year budget. For nearly a decade, we have been paying, year after year, for Medicaid expansion. All of it wasted. 

When you take away the spin, the real question is, do we want to pay for our own healthcare or do we want to ship our tax dollars off, out of state, never to be seen again? 

Do we want to waste $5 billion for absolutely nothing in return, or do we want to see 500,000 of our neighbors gain healthcare coverage, 6,000 – 8,000 in Haywood, Jackson, and Swain?

Do we want to waste $5 billion for nothing, or do we want to lower every North Carolinian’s insurance premiums by an average of 7 percent by closing the coverage gap and stopping the cost shifting? 

Do we want to waste $5 billion for nothing, or do we want to create over 40,000 new healthcare jobs in North Carolina, more than 400 in Haywood, Jackson, and Swain?

Do we want to waste $5 billion for nothing, or do we want to take the single most important step we can to fight the opioid crisis and save thousands of lives every single year, 20 to 30 in Haywood, Jackson, and Swain?

It’s high time we start taking our federal taxes and the lives of hard-working North Carolinians seriously. It’s time to expand Medicaid in North Carolina. 

Rep. Joe Sam Queen

Waynesville