BY Kim Genardo
NBC17
RALEIGH, N.C. — The rush is on to lose weight and stop smoking.

During the State Employees 2009 Health and Wellness Expo at the North Carolina Fairgrounds Wednesday, among the most crowded booths — weight loss plans, fitness memberships and healthy eating options.

State workers and those covered under the State Health Plan will pay higher premiums next July if they don’t kick the habit.

Then the following year, July 2011, those deemed overweight will pay more too.

Molly Taylor who helped organize the expo said weight loss is all the talk when she’s working in the state auditor’s office.

“We have some wives who are helping their husbands loose weight cause they didn’t do it for any other reason, but now that it’s going to cost them money the husbands will loose the weight,” said Taylor.

Gov. Bev Perdue spoke to the crowd and encouraged them all to become role models.

She told the crowd she lost nearly 100 pounds in the 1990s, she gave up smoking in 2003, and now she exercises everyday and must manage her high blood pressure.

“I just decided I could control my own destiny.  If state employees want to do that, I’m here to cheer them on. But again, this is personal, nobobdy can make you do it. It’s something you have to decide to do,” said Perdue.

But what about those who are not as motivated? Eventually they’ll be paying more for their health coverage. Lawmakers approved changes to the plan during the budget session.

“The health plan is done by the General Assembly and someday I’m hopeful to have that changed. I’ve never been a fan of how decisions are made for premium changes,” said Perdue.

The health plan covers 667,000 state employees and teachers.

Lawmakers will consider a renewal in 2011.

WASHINGTON – Moving toward the final stage of a historic debate, the Senate’s top Democrat prepared to unveil a new health care bill that aims to meet President Barack Obama’s goal of expanding coverage without adding to the federal deficit.

Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada met Wednesday morning at the Capitol with Vice President Joe Biden to go over the game plan on health care. Crucial to the White House and Reid is winning over a handful of reluctant moderate Democrats.

Reid planned to present the bill to Democratic senators at a closed-door meeting late Wednesday afternoon. His goal was to deliver a formal cost and coverage estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, and put the legislation on track toward a floor debate within days.

Health care allies around Washington were alerted that Reid and top Senate Democrats planned to hold a Capitol Hill rally for the bill at noon Thursday.

The Democratic leader has spent weeks melding separate bills from the Senate health committee and the Finance panel, trying to find compromise on dozens of difficult issues. His roughly $900 billion, 10-year health care remake faces rough going in the Senate, with Republican leaders determined to use every available tactic to delay or derail the bill.

For his part, Reid must hold Democrats together to overcome procedural challenges on the floor that require 60 votes for him to prevail. The debate could drag on for weeks. Reid’s bill would gradually extend health insurance coverage to nearly all Americans by providing government subsidies to help pay premiums. Starting in 2013, it would ban insurance company practices such as charging more to those in poor health, or denying them coverage altogether.

All Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government plan or by purchasing it on their own. The Medicaid health insurance program for low-income people would be significantly expanded.

The bill would set up new insurance marketplaces – calledexchanges – primarily for those who now have a hard time getting or keeping coverage. Most people buying coverage through the exchanges would get tax credits to help cover the cost of premiums. They would be able to pick private coverage or a new government health insurance plan.

However, the government plan may not be available all across the country. Reid would allow individual states to opt out.

To keep down costs, the government subsidies and consumer protections don’t take effect until 2013. During the three-year transition, Reid’s bill would create a federal fund to help provide affordable coverage for people with medical problems turned down by private insurers in the meantime.

The majority of Americans who now have employer-provided health insurance would not see major changes. Among the exceptions to that rule: Children would be allowed to stay on their parents’ health insurance until their mid-20s.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – The health insurance plan for North Carolina state employees is still paying out more claims than budgeted for the first three months of the fiscal year.

Lawmakers received State Health Plan data Thursday showing paid medical claims are 4 percent higher than expected through Sept. 30.

That’s better compared to an 8 percent increase through August.

Plan leaders attribute higher payouts to patients going to the doctor before higher payment schedules took effect July 1. Chief financial officer Mona Moon said she’s waiting for more figures to determine whether expense levels will come down.

The plan is on track to have $130 million on hand next summer.

It was in danger of running out of cash last spring before the Legislature approved a $675 million bailout.

They came with strollers and strong opinions…moms converged on Capitol Hill demanding universal coverage for kids.

Pamela Shaw, Senior Policy Consultant of the Children’s Defense Fund said, “Without significant changes children will be worse off rather than better off. We say that children must be better off after health reform.”

Today opponents of health care reform stage their own rally.

Representative Steve King of Iowa said, “There are buses that are coming in from state after state after state.”

GOP critics are encouraging them to storm lawmakers’ offices and demand “no” votes on overhaul plans.

Representative Michael McCaul of Texas said, “You have the power to defeat this government takeover of the health care system and to take over one-sixth of our economy.”

To Democrats, it’s obstruction of change they promised.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said, “My Republican colleagues have become the party of no.”

The stakes are monumental for President Obama.

He said, when it comes to healthcare, families can’t afford “no change”.

President Barack Obama said, “We had an obligation to create a better healthcare system that works for our people, our businesses and our government alike.”

The President leans on lawmakers in person Friday, to try to close the deal for Democrats.

WASHINGTON  – The Senate Democratic leader is indicating lawmakers may not complete health care legislation this year, missing President Barack Obama’s deadline on his signature issue.

Asked if the Senate would complete comprehensive legislation in the next two months, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday:  “We’re not going to be bound by any timelines.”

Reid said he was awaiting a final cost analysis on the bill from the Congressional Budget Office.

Obama has pressed Congress for a bill by year’s end. Across the Capitol, the House is expected to vote on its version of legislation later this week. Lawmakers from both chambers then would have to meld the two bills and cast final votes in the House and Senate before the legislation could be sent to the president.

WASHINGTON  – After months of struggle, House Democrats rolled out sweeping legislation Thursday to extend health care coverage to millions who lack it and create a new option of government-run insurance. A vote is likely next week on the plan largely tailored to President Barack Obama’s liking.

Speaking on the steps of the Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress was at a “historic moment” with lawmakers “on the cusp of delivering on the promise of making affordable, quality health insurance available to every American.”

Officials said the measure, once fully phased-in over several years, would extend coverage to 96 percent of Americans. Its principal mechanism for universal coverage is creation of a new government-regulated insurance “exchange” where private companies would sell policies in competition with the government. Federal subsidies would be available to millions of lower-income individuals and families to help them afford the policies, and to small businesses as an incentive to offer coverage to their workers.

Large firms would be required to cover workers, and most individuals would be required to carry insurance.

The ceremony marked a pivotal moment in the Democrats’ yearlong attempt to answer Obama’s call for legislation to remake the nation’s health care system by extending insurance, ending industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions, and slowing the growth of medical spending nationwide.

Across the Capitol, Senate Democrats, too, are hoping to pass legislation by year’s end. Legislation outlined by Majority Leader Harry Reid earlier this week would include an option for a government-run plan, although states could drop out if they wished, a provision not in the House measure.

Obama issued a statement saying House Democrats had reached a “critical milestone” on the road toward a health care overhaul, and singled out the proposed government insurance option. He also said the bill “clearly meets two of the fundamental criteria I have set out: It is fully paid for and will reduce the deficit in the long term.”

Republican reaction was swift and critical.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., head of the Republican Study Committee, issued a statement saying Democrats had produced a “government takeover that will limit choice, competition and innovation in health care while increasing costs and decreasing quality.” He said the measure would kill jobs, raise taxes and inflict cuts on a program of private Medicare that provides benefits to millions of seniors.

GOP leaders long ago decided to oppose the approach requested by Obama and taken by Democrats, and health care is expected to figure in next year’s congressional election campaigns. Democrats issued a statement saying their 1,990-page measure “lowers costs for every patient” and would not add to federal deficits. They put the cost of coverage at under $900 billion over 10 years, a total that excludes several items designed to improve benefits for Medicare and Medicaid recipients and providers, as well as public health programs and more.

With Republicans expected to oppose the measure unanimously, Pelosi and her lieutenants worked for weeks to resolve differences within the Democratic rank and file.

The toughest of them covered the terms under which the government insurance option would function. Liberals generally wanted the government to dictate the rates to be paid to doctors, hospitals and other health care providers, with the fee levels linked to Medicare.

Moderates, fearing the impact on their local hospitals, held out for negotiated rates between the government and private insurers – and won.

Not all liberals were ready to sign on. “My inclination is not to support it,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but that represented a softening of his opposition.

Grijalva acknowledged there was an argument for progressives to vote “yes.” “The logic is to keep the ball rolling,” Grijalva said Thursday.

Democrats control 256 seats in the House, are overwhelmingly favored to win one special election next week and are competitive for another. As a result, they can afford more than 30 defections on the legislation and still prevail.

House Democrats’ campaign arm wasted no time in using the bill release as a fundraising opportunity. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee e-mailed supporters asking them to help raise $50,000 by Thursday night “so we have the resources to fight back against Republican attacks and prove that grassroots Democrats are standing strong behind health insurance reform with a strong public option.”

The legislation would be financed by a combination of cuts in planned Medicare spending and an income tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on individuals making at least $500,000 annually and couples making at least $1 million. The bill would require nearly everyone by 2013 to sign up for health coverage either through their employer, a government program or the new exchange.

In the meantime, a temporary government program would help people turned down by private insurers because of medical problems, lawmakers said. After that, insurers no longer could refuse to provide coverage to the sick, nor could they charge more because of poor health of the insured.

The plan also calls for a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income people. And it would impose a requirement on employers to offer insurance to their workers or face penalties.

Pelosi, D-Calif., and the leadership have yet to work out disputes over abortion services and health care for immigrants, issues that must be settled before the bill can come to a vote. Pelosi has also said the bill would strip the health insurance industry of a long-standing exemption from antitrust laws covering market allocation, price fixing and bid rigging. Democratic officials said the bill also would give the Federal Trade Commission authority to look into the health insurance industry at its own initiative. The officials spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to pre-empt a formal announcement.

While precise figures were not immediately available, it appeared the legislation would target the drug industry for more than the $80 billion that pharmaceutical firms agreed to contribute toward health care in a deal earlier this year with the White House and key senators. But the industry managed to come away with a provision worth billions: 12 years of market protection for high-tech drugs to combat cancer, Parkinson’s and other deadly diseases.

Medical device makers also took a hit, with a 2.5 percent excise tax on sales of their products that is reported to cost the industry $20 billion over the next decade. A $40 billion fee on those businesses was included in a Senate Finance Committee-approved version of the legislation, but Reid is considering cutting it by as much as half.

WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama says small businesses that participate in a proposed government health care plan could save a quarter on their premiums by 2016.

Obama on Thursday told small business leaders that few people have a bigger stake in health reform than they do. He says the House version of a health care bill would help millions of small businesses cut growing health care costs and was written with small businesses owners in mind.

Obama says small businesses have been hit harder than most and their owners understand the need for changes to the nation’s health care system.

The president says too many entrepreneurs can’t take a chance on new ideas because they cannot leave their jobs to start new projects. He says that situation hurts the economy.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Kay R. Hagan (D-NC) will join the other Democratic women Senators on Larry King Live tonight to discuss how health care reform will have a positive impact on women.

This morning, Hagan joined eight of her colleagues for a series of back-to-back floor speeches to discuss inefficiencies and disparities in the health care system that negatively affect women.  In the majority of states, insurance companies currently charge women more than men for the same coverage.

In eight states and the District of Columbia, insurance companies also deny coverage to victims of domestic violence. Very few insurance companies cover comprehensive maternity care.

Hagan discussed this issue in a floor speech last Thursday and at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr says a new health care proposal offered in Congress “fails several crucial tests.”

The Republican lawmaker rejected the bill Wednesday despite Democratic concessions on a public insurance option. He said he opposed the measure because of increased spending, taxes and cuts to Medicare.

Burr had long opposed President Barack Obama’s plan to create a government insurance option to compete with private carriers. The latest Democratic plan released by Sen. Max Baucus does not include such a plan but instead a system of nonprofit member-owned cooperatives – something Burr had previously said he would consider.

North Carolina’s other senator, Democrat Kay Hagan, supports the bill. She released the following statement:

“Last week, I joined a group of other moderate Democrats who discussed with the President the importance of ensuring the health care reform package is fiscally responsible. I am pleased the Finance Committee produced a bill that does not increase our deficit.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will reduce our federal deficit by $49 billion over the next ten years. I also commend Chairman Max Baucus for working hard with our colleagues across the aisle to include Republican input in the bill.

“I am very supportive of the insurance market reforms in the Finance bill, which are similar to those that we passed in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.  It prevents insurance companies from turning you away due to a preexisting condition, removes annual and lifetime caps on coverage, and removes co-pays for preventative services.

“The Finance Committee bill also includes a CO-OP model, one backstop option for providing insurance to those without employer-sponsored care. I would like to see a backstop option included in the final bill.

“While there are many details that still need to be worked out, we ultimately need health insurance reform that ensures people who like their insurance and doctors keep them, expands access to health insurance for those without it, and slows down the skyrocketing cost of health care.  I am committed to working with my Senate colleagues to ensure these critical components are included in the final bill.”