In a Thursday morning press conference about Medicaid, Gov. Pat McCrory avoided apologizing to those he offended when he commented about liberal arts programs earlier in the week.

The press conference was about the recent audit of the North Carolina Division of Health and Human Services. However, the topic of the conference did not prevent John Frank, a reporter for The News & Observer, from asking McCrory whether he would apologize for the remarks he made about gender studies and philosophy programs on a radio talk show Tuesday morning. 

“John with all respect, you’re the only one who mentioned liberal arts in a negative way,” McCrory said in response to Frank’s question. “I never mentioned liberal arts in a negative way.”

McCrory accused Frank, who wrote an article about the governor’s appearance on Tuesday’s talk show, of excluding part of the interview in his article. McCrory proceeded to interrupt Frank, preventing him from elaborating on his original question, to explain his stance on education. 

“I believe education is for two purposes,” McCrory said. “One is to help exercise the brain, and that means get critical thinking and good problem solving skills and understand our past and our future, and the second reason is to teach us skills that help us also get jobs.”

North Carolina State Auditor, Beth Wood, and Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Aldona Wos, joined McCrory to help explain the findings of a recently concluded audit of the state’s Medicaid program. 

According to Wood, high administrative costs and poor budget planning and forecasting have caused the state to exceed the certified budget in the Medicaid spending area by more than $1.4 billion for each of the last three fiscal years. 

McCrory, Wood and Wos did not propose a specific plan to set the Medicaid budget straight, but they did say the administration will be working to correct the overruns starting immediately with the help of North Carolina Medicaid Director, Carol Steckel.