RALEIGH — North Carolina legislative leaders announced last Thursday an agreement to expand Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of additional low-income adults through the Affordable Care Act. The deal, which likely won’t be voted on until later this month at the earliest, marks a milestone for Republican lawmakers, most of whom opposed expansion for a decade until recently. North Carolina has been one of 11 states that has not adopted Medicaid expansion. If the deal goes through, the state would start providing expansion coverage to people starting next January. “This is something that we can all be very proud of,”…