RALEIGH, N.C., April 1 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Senate candidate Republican Richard Burr told more than 300 delegates to the Annual Meeting of North Carolina’s 27 electric cooperatives Thursday morning, “health care is the number one crisis in America.”
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.
Burr criticized the U.S. Senate for not passing medical liability reform legislation for OB-GYN doctors. Because so many OBs are dropping baby delivery service, Burr said he can foresee the day when only three locations in North Carolina will have doctors willing to deliver babies. “There are some doctors we can do without, I’m not sure how we can do with them,” he said.
Liability is just one segment of the problem. Burr said prescription drugs have become too expensive and childhood obesity and the onset of diabetes should be treated as a national crisis. Burr said the private sector is a vital component to improving the nation’s health care delivery system. He warned, “The answer is not to let the federal government run the whole thing.”
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.”
Democratic Party Senate candidate Erskine Bowles will address the delegates at 1:30 p.m. Bowles served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff from 1996 until 1998. In 1999, Bowles was selected by North Carolina governor Jim Hunt to serve as chair of the Rural Prosperity Task Force.
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 electric cooperatives,+1-919-622-8132, or rick.martinez@nccemcs.com
