Western North Carolinians are holding a forum tonight to discuss the “serious risks” of the GOP’s toxic budget, which Michael Whatley has championed from day one, calling it a “huge win” and saying he would have voted for it “in a heartbeat.”

Whatley’s agenda spikes costs, rips health care from hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, and threatens to shutter five rural hospitals across the state – including two in Western North Carolina – just to give tax handouts to billionaires.

Read more about the devastating impacts of Whatley’s agenda on North Carolinians:

Asheville Citizen-Times: NC Democratic Party raises alarm about Big Beautiful Bill’s impact on rural hospitals

• The state Democratic party’s press conference comes as healthcare advocates and elected officials fear President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which was signed into law in July and cuts about $1 trillion from Medicaid, could shutter hospitals like Blue Ridge Regional and threaten healthcare access for patients in rural America, like Charlton.
• “No one has cheered on these cuts more than Michael Whatley,” Charlton said during the press conference. “He calls them a ‘huge win.’ It may be a ‘huge win,’ but only for billionaires, not for people like my husband and me.”

NC Newsline: Commentary: The North Carolinians that the “big, beautiful bill” will terrify, bankrupt, and kill

• Wertenberg’s gratitude for Medicaid was echoed by a lifetime Raleigh resident named Crystal Upchurch. She explained how she was diagnosed with Lupus in 2009 and how that disease ultimately led to a serious renal condition that requires her to receive regular dialysis treatments — treatments that are, thankfully, covered by Medicaid. As she explained, her ability to continue receiving dialysis treatment is quite literally a life and death matter. “I can’t say it more clearly than this: these cuts could cost me my life,” Upchurch observed.
• Like it or not, the massive Medicaid cuts contained in the legislation will, in fact, make it inevitable that vast numbers of people with stories very similar to Maddie’s and Crystal’s will be sentenced to crippling debt, and/or premature death. After all, that’s what happened in North Carolina during the years GOP lawmakers delayed Medicaid expansion, and the new cuts make a return to those days all but inevitable.

CBS 17: Many North Carolina residents to lose money under Big Beautiful Bill

• A recent report from the University of Pennsylvania shows people who make between $53,000 and $96,000 annually may see an increase in their pay in the next few years, but will lose about $1,500 annually by 2033.
• Households making more than $1 million annually will make an extra $29,000 and more by that year.
• Because the average household income in North Carolina is about $69,000 annually, the average household will lose money.

Cardinal and Pine: OPINION: Medicaid cuts will hurt NC families like ours

• I’ve had Medicaid since late last year, and I’ve been grateful for all the help it’s given me. Now, I’m worried that I’ll lose my healthcare, all because some members of Congress believe billionaires deserve tax cuts while I deserve to either die young or work to pay medical bills until I die.
• Next November is the midterms. North Carolina will have one of the biggest US Senate races in the country. It will be between Michael Whatley, who called gutting Medicaid a “huge win,” and, former Gov. Roy Cooper, who made it his mission as governor to expand Medicaid. 
• My plan is simple. I will use my voice, like my parents taught me, and share my story. I will hold our elected officials accountable and ensure Michael Whatley has to answer for this heartless law. I will make sure our open U.S. Senate seat is held by someone who believes I am deserving of health care.

New York Times: ‘Tears My Heart to Pieces’: North Carolina Braces for Medicaid Cuts

• […] the people of Martin County, in rural eastern North Carolina, have been determined to […] reopen their hospital, which had been struggling financially for years.
• But those plans are now in jeopardy, as is Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands of North Carolina residents, after Congress passed President Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill. To help pay for tax cuts, the bill slashes federal spending on Medicaid, leaving states that expanded the program under Obamacare in a particularly difficult spot.
• In interviews last week, local health officials and chief executives of hospital systems across the state said that expanding Medicaid had helped create a lifeline for rural hospitals, allowing some to bounce back from financial deficits. And several North Carolina residents who became eligible for Medicaid through the expansion said they felt worried about the possibility of once again navigating life without health coverage.

NC Newsline: Dems blast impact of Medicaid cuts on rural healthcare, spotlight 2026 Senate race

• North Carolina Democrats held a press conference Tuesday to attack Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley, portraying him as a threat to rural healthcare. They pointed to Whatley’s support for the so-called “one big beautiful bill” which state health officials say could cut nearly $50 billion in Medicaid funding in North Carolina over the next decade.
• Nearly 680,000 North Carolinians have gained coverage since the expansion of Medicaid in 2023, but the passage of “one big beautiful bill,” a sweeping tax and spending package signed into law by President Trump earlier this summer, could put that coverage and the survival of some rural hospitals at risk.

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