Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 2, 1994 TAG: 9408020089
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
He told about 60 people Saturday at his town meeting in Blacksburg that, unlike approval of Social Security in the 1930s and Medicare in the 1960s,health reform proposals are complex and poorly understood and the consensus may not exist for universal coverage this year.
Boucher said he does believe there is a broad public consensus for supporting parts of a health reform package, including making insurance benefits portable so people can take their coverage from one job to another. He said many people are kept from moving to better jobs today because they can get no coverage at the new job for pre-existing conditions.
He also saw support for reducing the high malpractice insurance premiums doctors pay, which get passed along to patients' costs. He suggested that could be done by doing at the federal level what Virginia has done, set a maximum amount on damages that can be assessed in addition to actual losses shown.
Boucher felt the public would support measures in a reform package to encourage physicians to go to areas that need more of them, such as many parts of his Ninth Congressional District.
He said he continues to oppose businesses providing 80 percent of health care coverage for employees, which big businesses could handle but small businesses, like many in this district, could not. They would have to lay off employees or close up in many cases, he said.
Boucher held three community meetings Saturday, and said he usually holds about 100 a year. This year, he has already held nearly 80, mainly to hear constituent views of health care reform.
Regarding interstate Route 73 to be built through Virginia from West Virginia into North Carolina, Boucher said the House of Representatives accepted his recommendation that no Virginia route for the highway be designated at this time.
He said he has written Virginia Sens. John Warner and Charles Robb asking for their support in delaying a route designation, although he said there is still a remote chance the Senate may designate a route.
Virginia's Transportation Commission recommended a route that goes through the New River Valley into the Roanoke Valley. ``I have never seen a highway siting decision that has engendered more opposition along its route,'' Boucher said.
He said that routing would not put a new road where access is needed, but along a route already served adequately by highways. His own preferred route would be coming from North Carolina into Virginia on Interstate 77, picking up Virginia 100 and four-laning it through Carroll, Pulaski and Giles counties, and picking up U.S. 460 at Pearisburg to go into West Virginia.
In the next two years, he said, he believes a consensus for that or some other route could be built and taken back to Congress. ``That is my hope for what can be accomplished.''
He said people could write to their U.S. senators urging that the siting decision be delayed ``and, if you would like in the process to designate Route 100 as an alternate, I wouldn't mind that at all.''
by CNB