Business Latest: What’s at stake in NC Senate debate?

A DEBATE, A RACE, AND WHAT  MATTERS: Every important element in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate comes into focus in North Carolina. The race features a Democratic incumbent, Kay Hagan, whose party is counting on her winning a second term to hold its majority. Just like five of her Democratic Senate colleagues. It takes place in a state Mitt Romney carried over Barack Obama two years ago. It features strong Republican attacks on a president with dwindling popularity — and strong Democratic counterattacks on a Republican Party with big image problems of its own. Just like in every other targeted race this year. Read more

MEDICAID EXPANSION WINNERS: Hospitals in states that have already expanded Medicaid have seen a windfall, with increased revenues and substantial reductions in the rates of uninsured and charity patients, new PwC report notes. “Growth in Medicaid expansion states starkly contrasts the experience in the 24 states that did not expand,” says PwC, which also notes that while this was expected, the gap is “greater than most industry analysts expected.”  Read more 

MOM AND POP SHOPS FLY TO THE CLOUD: The big winners in cloud computing to date have been vendors catering primarily to large businesses. Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Workday and ServiceNow have shifted massive enterprise applications to the Web, helping salespeople, human resource workers, finance departments and information technology specialists do their jobs with better speed and efficiency than they could with old desktop software. The next crop of emerging cloud players are targeting mom and pop shops – those left behind by most advances in technology. Read more 

STOCKS CLOSE MIXED AHEAD OF ECB, DATA; APPLE HIT: Read more