NC speaker: Medicaid expansion not in latest budget offer

The leader of the North Carolina House says the latest budget offer that Republicans sent to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper wouldn’t expand Medicaid broadly as Cooper wants. But Speaker Tim Moore says it does sweeten a previous proposal on worker pay raises. The legislative and executive branches are trying to hammer out a budget that Cooper would be willing to sign. The alternative would be for lawmakers to approve their own plan and try to override what would likely be a Cooper veto. Cooper is a longtime advocate of expanding Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of more people, but Republicans are divided on the idea.