This week, I introduced the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment (CARE) Act with my congressional colleagues Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). The Patient CARE Act is the first bicameral legislative plan that repeals Obamacare and replaces it with common-sense, patient-focused reforms that reduce health care costs and increase access to affordable, high-quality care.
North Carolinians have found out the hard way what is in Obamacare — broken promises in the form of increased health care costs, costly mandates, and government bureaucracy. And no, just because you like your healthcare, you don’t necessarily get to keep it. Even if the President said so. For a year, you have been sending your Obamacare stories about high premiums, lost coverage, and your personal information being exposed by broken websites. I’ve listened and proposed a blueprint that will in fact, make your healthcare more affordable.
Our nation’s health care system was broken before Obamacare, and the President’s health care debacle has only made things worse. The Patient CARE Act repeals Obamacare and addresses the fundamental cost drivers that Obamacare failed to address. We can lower costs and expand access to quality coverage and care by empowering individuals and their families to make their own health care decisions, rather than having the federal government make those decisions for them.
Here are a couple of stories on the Patient CARE Act I recommend:
- New York Times: G.O.P. Lawmakers Propose Alternative to Obamacare
- Bloomberg: An Actual Republican Alternative to Obamacare
- Forbes: The Impressive New Obamacare Replace Plan From Republicans Burr, Hatch, And Upton
I also joined David Crabtree from Raleigh’s WRAL and Bret Baier on Fox’s Special Report. Click below to watch.
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| WRAL | Fox |
You can find more information about the Patient CARE Act here.
Thursday, I introduced legislation with Senator McCaskill (D-MO) to close a legal loophole that currently enables sex offenders convicted in the military justice system to evade registration with the National Sex Offender Registry. Recent Scripps and WGHP reports found that this loophole has enabled hundreds of convicted sex offenders to avoid registering and allowed some to commit horrendous crimes again.
This gap should have been closed long ago. I hope Congress will act swiftly to send this legislation to the President’s desk before another predator exploits this loophole and strikes again.
Earlier in the week, I spoke on the floor about my bill, S. 338, that would help protect our national landscapes. The LWCF has important implications for our parks, open spaces, and wildlife habitats. Watch my floor speech here or by clicking below.
The Senate unanimously passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act on Tuesday. I am proud that the Senate overwhelmingly passed this bipartisan legislation and finally took action to address the real problems we have had handling veteran suicide.
The Clay Hunt Act provides for better access to information on mental health by improving the exchange of training, best practices, and other resources among the VA and non-profit mental health organizations to enhance collaboration of suicide prevention efforts, as well as including a new website that offers veterans information on mental health care services. More details can be found here.
This week I appeared on CNN this week as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, where I emphasized the sophistication of the Islamic State’s operations and funding where I said, “We can’t forget – ISIL controls an area within Syria and Iraq that makes any terrorist training grounds that we’ve seen up to this point seem like a playground.”
On Monday, the President’s budget came out, and he yet again his budget doesn’t balance. And it never has. It also raises taxes by $2.1 trillion. That’s a bad deal for Americans.
Sincerely,
Richard Burr
