House Democrats have lined up behind a merger-oversight bill for hospitals that’s substantively identical to the one Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, introduced on April 30. “We want a process to be followed,” Rep. Sarah Crawford, D-Wake, said Monday during a caucus news conference on a quartet of healthcare bills. “We want to be transparent and […]
Sen. Jim Burgin, the Harnett County Republican who co-chairs the Senate’s Health committee, got wind of the prospective Atrium Health/WakeMed merger about three weeks ago but got stonewalled when he asked Atrium officials about it. Burgin says his “contact at Atrium” wouldn’t answer when he said he’d heard a rumor the Charlotte-based hospital system was […]
Legislators ought to peg child-care subsidies to a statewide benchmark instead of letting them vary from county to county, a bipartisan task force appointed by Gov. Josh Stein says. The current approach sets child care reimbursements at 75% of a county’s market rate, but the problem is that it winds up shortchanging rural and low-income counties, the […]
Republicans have been making news this session for their interest in narrowing the scope of the state attorney general’s authority. But there’s one GOP senator that wants to widen it. Sen. Jim Burgin’s move in Senate Bill 624 is part of his broader effort to lay down some legislative markers surrounding the use of AI. […]
Senate leaders are signaling that they’re going start pushing a pair of health-related bills through the chamber this week. They’ve scheduled hearings on Wednesday in the chamber’s Health Care committee on newly introduced Senate Bills 315 and 316. Both were filed on Monday. And both have the same set of primary sponsors, Republican Sens. Jim […]
Sen. Jim Burgin’s bill proposing a cap on health-insurance coverage mandates cleared the Senate on an almost party line, 30-15 vote Wednesday afternoon. The vote on Senate Bill 24 came after Republicans rejected a Democratic request for a comprehensive examination of the cost issues, to include a look at medical debt, drug prices and the […]
Sen. Jim Burgin’s attempt to cap the number of health-insurance mandates embedded in state law cleared its first two committee hurdles this week and remains on track to get to the Senate floor. Senate Bill 24 cleared the chamber’s Health Care and Pensions committees on Wednesday and now needs only an endorsement from the Rules […]
I was hanging out for the GOP caucus photo because I wanted to talk to Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, who’s the lead sponsor of one of the first bills in the session that’s likely to gain traction. This would be Senate Bill 24, which would cap the number of health-benefit mandates embedded in state law […]
Legislators have to “tread very carefully” when it comes to regulating the uses of artificial intelligence, Senate leader Phil Berger says. Still, “I know that there are concerns out there,” many of them “legitimate concerns, about the impact of artificial intelligence on all manner of things,” Berger said. His comments reacted to a question about […]
North Carolina’s economy likely will keep thriving in 2025, but President-elect Trump’s professed intentions on tariffs and immigration are clouding the picture, panelists in Business North Carolina’s annual economic forecast say. Campbell University economics professor Mark Steckbeck noted that the state defied predictions of a slowdown in 2024. For 2025, he posits a growth rate […]
Burgin’s comments at Thursday’s confab also touched on potential legislative issues. For starters, he told participants to expect legislators to introduce a bill in the upcoming long session that addresses the use of cell phones by students in K-12 schools. He said he’s heard from principals who report that over 70% of the 9-, 10- […]
