Pearl Burris-Floyd
North Carolina Senate
1319 Legislative Building
Raleigh, NC 27601 - (919) 733-2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 6, 2010
Health Care Protection Act Draws Support From Citizens
Governor Halts Plans to Protect Citizens’ Rights
Raleigh, N.C. – Supporters of the Health Care Protection Act rallied on Halifax Mall today as a meeting of the Council of State took place nearby. In the N.C. House, the bill will be introduced by House Republican Leader Paul Stam as well as Representatives Thom Tillis, Jeffrey Barnhart and Pearl Burris-Floyd. In the N.C. Senate, the bill will be introduced by Senator Debbie Clary.
Representative Pearl Burris- Floyd stated, “Americans have the right to choose their own healthcare plan without fear of financial penalty by their own government. To force Americans to accept this plan is Un-American and unconstitutional.”
Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger stated, “The people of North Carolina must be protected from this unprecedented and unconstitutional overreach by the federal government. This bill aims to protect the rights of individual citizens who want to maintain control over their own health care decisions.”
The rally also supported the motion by the Commissioner of Labor Cherie Berry and Agricultural Commissioner Steve Troxler, in today’s meeting of the Council of State to require Attorney General Roy Cooper to join an ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health care law. According to news reports, Governor Bev Perdue would not even allow discussion to take place in the meeting because the Attorney General was absent. (“Perdue dodges Republican pressure to join health care lawsuit,” Under the Dome, 4/6/10)
The General Assembly is not prevented from acting to protect the rights of North Carolina citizens even if a majority of the Council of State, Governor Perdue, or Attorney General Cooper. One provision of the Health Care Protection Act would require the Attorney General to go to court on behalf of North Carolinians to claim the protections of the bill.
Serious and profound constitutional questions arise from the 9th and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the North Carolina Declaration of Rights concerning the authority of the federal government as a result of the new health care law. Representative Stam commented, “This mandate from Washington is unprecedented and unwise. Never before has a citizen been ordered by the federal government to buy a commercial product just for the privilege of living in America, on threat of fines and fees.”
Rep. Burris-Floyd of Gaston County, a full-time cancer detection specialist, joined Co-Sponsor Representative Stam in speaking for the bill, along with Cathy Wright of Chatham County, a candidate for the North Carolina House. Mrs. Wright was in the health care field for many years as an executive director of societies of Ophthalmologists. Her husband is a pediatric ophthalmologist at UNC.
If the current Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature fail to move this bill in the 2010 short session, Senator Berger and Representative Stam have committed to bring it before the General Assembly as one of the first orders of business in January 2011.
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