Earlier this year, public option insurance arrived in North Carolina. It tip-toed on the scene quietly. But thanks to the 2007 General Assembly, a high-risk pool insurance plan was created to help middle class people who suddenly find themselves without insurance.
The plan is known as Inclusive Health and only 2,000 or so people are enrolled. The legislators created the program for people who have lost their jobs or don’t qualify for Medicare or who have been turned down by private companies. Small business owners with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes or health problems have found Inclusive Health to be a safety-net.
Actually, North Carolina became the 35th state to create a public option plan two years ago.
FILL ‘ER UP: State Sen. Steve Goss stays on the road keeping in touch with his constituents. Over the past 11 months he paid himself $19,000 out of his campaign fund as reimbursement for travel over the past three years. At the federal rate of 55 cents a mile, that represents 35,000 miles of travel. Goss explained he could not afford to take money from his fund while campaigning and waited until his contributions brought in enough for reimbursement. The State Board of Elections said the system doesn’t work that way—travel expenses are supposed to be reported when they occur. Goss paid himself $9,800 in October and November of last year and $9,000 in January.
BACK TO WORK: State Sen. David Weinstein of Lumberton, like other senior citizens, is back in the workforce. The 73-year old Democrat has accepted a position as director of the Governor’s Highway Safety Program at a salary of about $92,000 a year.
Sen. Weinstein had let it be known he wanted a job and had hoped to become chairman of the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, but that job went to someone else. Weinstein was co-chair of the Appropriations Committee on Natural and Economic Resources which includes the Department of Commerce and Parks and Recreation Department.
‘I NEED FAMILY TIME’: Catawba County Sheriff David Huffman says he will retire from politics after his term ends next November. Huffman had told some people he was entertaining a run for the N.C. House of Representatives which would have put him in a primary facing Mark Hilton. Huffman has no love for Hilton who opposed him in a GOP primary for the congressional seat now held by U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry. Huffman said he wants to spend more time with his family.
Huffman also would face the Hilton-McHenry faction which now controls the GOP organization in Catawba County. So-called moderate Republicans, including District Attorney Jay Gaither and County Commission Chair Kitty Barnes have been targeted by the far-right conservatives. Gaither is the son-in-law of businessman Dean Proctor who backed Huffman in the primary against McHenry. No fence-mending yet.
