RALEIGH, N.C., April 1 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Senate candidate Republican Richard Burr told delegates to the Annual Meeting of North Carolina’s 27 electric cooperatives Thursday morning “health care is the number one crisis in America.” Later in the day Democratic Party candidate Erskine Bowles told the 340 delegates “there is no greater issue in North Carolina today than economic development because economic development is jobs.”
Burr chastised lawmakers in Washington and Raleigh for not confronting liability reform for health care providers. “At the heart of the problem today is the fact that we can’t change the liability that currently exists in the marketplace for doctors and hospitals.” Burr told delegates gathered at the North Raleigh Hilton that approximately one third of businesses in the United States are considering dropping health care coverage an employee benefit, primarily because frivolous lawsuits are driving up the costs of health care insurance.
Bowles said investments in infrastructure, job skills and technology was key to growing the employment base in rural North Carolina. Without it, “We won’t invent the next new thing. The next new thing will be invented in India, or China or Indonesia.” Bowles called broadband Internet service the farm to market technology of the 21st century. “No small business is going to be able to sell to a large business in the future unless it can do so electronically. All state and federal procurement will be done over the Internet. It is critical to the future economic development of America and particularly rural North Carolina.”
Both candidates addressed the growing impact of the global economy. Trade is needed for new jobs, Burr said, otherwise, “we have to accept an unemployment rate in this country that is unconscionable.” But trade pacts must be enforceable and made with countries that can be trusted. “There’s a reason I voted against China’s trade agreement eight times. I didn’t think we could trust them ... I was right.”
Bowles said he wants to return “trade sanity” by opening more foreign markets to American goods and services. He also wants to stop countries from dumping goods in the United States that have resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs in North Carolina.
North Carolina’s electric cooperatives serve approximately 2.5 million people in 93 of the state’s 100 counties.
North Carolina’s electric cooperatives
CONTACT: Rick Martinez of North Carolina’s Touchstone Energycooperatives, +1-919-622-8132, or rick.martinez@ncemcs.com
