U.S. Rep. Ted Budd discusses Affordable Care Act in Greensboro visit

Feb. 24--GREENSBORO -- Congressman Ted Budd sat in a cardboard office Thursday afternoon, discussing with Cone Health administrators about the future of health care and the hospital.

The fifth stop in the Republican U.S. representative's tour of area health facilities, which started Monday, concluded Thursday at Moses Cone Hospital. At a former Food Lion that Cone bought last year, Budd was given a tour of a mock-up of the future Women's Hospital -- which may begin construction in the fall.

"This one, they wanted to show the lean methodology that the hospital is doing," Budd said. "It's cost savings and it's better patient care."

Doug Allred, spokesman for Cone Health, said officials wanted to show Budd the scope and breadth of the six-hospital system.

They talked about the process of moving services from the women's hospital to a site at the main Moses Cone Hospital campus. Estimates for the cost of the new women and children's health structure have been estimated at $134.5 million.

"We talked about quality -- the different sorts of quality treatment," Allred said.

And they talked about the Affordable Care Act, he said.

"A big part of the ACA is the shift from volume care to value care," Allred said. "That's something we'd like to see maintained wherever health care ends up."

Budd stopped for questions about the health care law after the meetings.

"The first thing that we're working on in Congress right now is first the repeal, and then the replace piece together," Budd said. "We want to make sure today that what we do is the best possible outcome."

He said the reason repeal and replace has not moved as fast as "the pure repeal constituents would like," was that Congress has slowed the process to make sure everyone is considered in the new system.

"The main thing in the umbrella that we're going to operate out of is moving things from government control, top-down government control, toward patient-centered doctor-relationship," Budd said. "The doctors seem to like that and the patients seem to like that."

Some Congress members have come under scrutiny for not holding town halls this week while they are on recess because they are concerned about protesters.

Budd is negotiating with property owners to set up an office in Greensboro. He said Thursday that he had settled on a site with one property manager, who later backed out because of concerns about possible protests.

Budd said he has continued to reach out to his constituents. In a tele-town hall about two weeks ago, he reached 18,000 voters, he said.

Todd Poole, his district director, said most of the participants in that first event were contacted through Budd's call list, though many participants also called in.

"We were told we need to give a little more notice," Poole said.

Budd's office will notify constituents earlier for future town halls, he said.

He said his district office will schedule meetings with constituents and can be reached at (336) 998-1313.

More contact information can be found at budd.house.gov/contact.

Contact Joe Gamm at (336) 373-7090 and follow @joegammNR on Twitter.

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