Health Care

I supported the Health Insurance Reform bill signed into law this past year. Health insurance reform was essential to ensuring coverage and controlling health care costs, now and in the future.

The goal of the bill is to ensure affordable insurance coverage to all Americans. This bill builds on our existing system of private insurance, but ensures that coverage will be affordable, and that once you get sick, your benefits are guaranteed.

Currently, if you do not receive insurance through your job, buying insurance as an individual or family is prohibitively expensive. Now, you will be able to choose what private insurance is best for you and your family, and purchase it at an affordable rate. Having a job will no longer be a prerequisite to having affordable insurance.

I traveled throughout the Triangle and Triad, received and read thousands of letters and emails, talked and listened to people with many different views on healthcare reform before deciding to vote “yes” on the final health care bill.

When I voted, I thought about people I met along the way. People who had worked all their lives, became ill, lost their jobs and lost their health insurance. The cost of their medical bills were prohibitive, some were in danger of losing their homes.

I was proud to be a part of this fight so that stories like these are ancient history.

The cornerstone of the health care bill is reforming the health insurance industry. This reform would require new regulation of health insurance that is no stricter than what most states require of car insurance.

One of the most essential new regulations would include requiring insurance companies to cover anyone who applies, regardless of their medical history. No longer will people who have had a previous illness be denied health insurance, and left to fend for themselves.

The bill will also expand Medicaid to the lowest income people, and more importantly it will provide assistance to lower income families to buy health insurance.