On the Chopping Block is a new page on the Together NC website that provides statewide and regional information about the economy and the impact of budget cuts. It’s our goal for this website to serve as a one-stop repository for anyone – the public, press and policy-makers – who are interested in learning more about the devastating effects of this year’s state budget.

We believe that the new web page will provide the public with an opportunity to learn the truth about what happened as a result of last year’s budget.

At the November Coalition meeting, William D. Bronson, a program manager at DHHS’s Division of MH/DD/SAS gave a presentation about Prescription Drug Misuse and the NC Controlled Substance Reporting System. You can download the presentation here:   Prescription Drug Misuse Presentation [1.7 MiB]

 

From the Winston-Salem Journal 11.13.11

Bath salts exploded on the national drug market earlier this year, believed to be the brainchild of unscrupulous chemists overseas. Once available in convenience stores and head shops under such innocuous sounding names as Kush Blitz, Wet n’ Wild or Vanilla Sky, the drugs mimicked feelings associated with cocaine or methamphetamine.

For months, they were being sold legally, with manufacturers exploiting a loophole in federal laws allowing them to be sold as long as they masqueraded as products not intended for human consumption.

For more on this story, click HERE.

From WRAL.com (11.08.11)

North Carolina lawmakers said Tuesday that they wouldn’t push for deep cuts to social service programs to balance a projected $139 million shortfall in the state Medicaid program.

Department of Health and Human Services officials told lawmakers last month that the agency couldn’t make the $356 million in cuts required in the state budget because lawmakers overestimated some cuts that have to be approved by the federal government.

That process takes months, officials said, but budget writers calculated the savings as if they had started immediately. Other requested cuts would break Medicaid program rules, which could cost the state millions in federal revenue, officials said.

“I don’t have the money within HHS to be able to make up that hole this year,” Health and Human Services Secretary Lanier Cansler told a legislative oversight committee on Tuesday.

About 1.5 million state North Carolina residents – mostly poor children, older adults and the disabled – receive Medicaid coverage.

Unless lawmakers find more money for Medicaid, Cansler said, he would be forced to eliminate many adult services, like hospice care and mental health care, which aren’t required by federal law. The state also could reduce reimbursements to physicians who treat Medicaid patients by up to 20 percent, he said.

For more on this story, click HERE.