Richard Burr: “many Members over the last several days have come to talk about health care, specifically the effects on small business.…”

“many Members over the last several days have come to talk about health care, specifically the effects on small business. I know my colleague didn't mean it the way it sounded, that this was a ``needless'' debate about health policy. It is a very needed debate about health policy. In North Carolina, 98 percent of the firms with employees are considered small business. Small business is who we are here to represent in this piece of legislation. Small business is the American business today that can't afford to offer health care as a benefit to its employees. Why? Because small business has few employees. They don't have the ability to negotiate in the volume that large corporations do. Some have argued this is not a crisis. In North Carolina, we have 1.3 million uninsured North Carolinians; 900,000 of that 1.3 million are individuals in a family or on their own where an individual works full time. There is somebody in the family who works full time in that house, be it the individual or a family member, who would have the option to be insured under this bill, at least individually or, if not, under a family plan, and our uninsured population from North Carolina could go from 1.3 million to 400,000 with the passage of one piece of legislation. This is not a needless debate. This is a needed debate. This is a population that today has two choices--nothing and nothing. Because an employer has found that health insurance is cost prohibitive.…”