N.C. Medicaid budget cuts: How much can you hit the helpless?

I'm working on a piece about Medicaid and potential Dept. of Health and Human Services budget cuts in N.C., and one paragraph from a conversation with Dept. Secretary Lanier Cansler says quite a bit.

EPSDT stands for Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment, a federal law requiring Medicaid to "provide all medically necessary health care services to Medicaid-eligible children."

EPSDT - that's not optional, and if a child needs a dental service we have to provide it, period. So any of these cuts would be adults, and we don't cover adults from 19-65 unless they are disabled or pregnant women. We have categorical eligibility. We serve kids up to 19, and seniors above 65. But between that, you have to be disabled, pregnant or "medically needy" where every dime you have gets eaten up by medical costs. But health care reform would change that, saying anyone under 138 percent poverty is covered by medicaid. that's why expect 200,000 new enrollees in 2014 due to health care reform

Get that? He says the only people you can really hit with cuts to optional Medicaid programs are pregnant women, people who've been disabled and senior citizens.

Unfortunately the full article will be much longer than this. Also, if you've ever been not sure why state governments are complaining about how much "Obamacare" will cost them (it's OK, friend, if you don't fully understand Medicaid), the last sentence from Secretary Cansler explains it.