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Roy Cooper for North Carolina
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Make Stuff Cost Less

Lowering the Cost of Food and Groceries:

The cost of food and groceries is skyrocketing in North Carolina and across the country. While farmers are getting crushed by tariffs and families are seeing prices rise at grocery stores and restaurants, big corporations and Washington DC insiders are doing all they can to squeeze every penny out of their customers. Roy Cooper is running for U.S. Senate to make stuff cost less, starting with the price of food and groceries.

  1. Support Our Farmers and Stop Chaotic Tariffs: Tariffs drive up costs on farmers who have to pass the costs along to restaurants, groceries stores and hardworking North Carolinians.

  2. Block Anti-Competitive Mergers: Strengthen antitrust enforcement in grocery retail and food processing to block corporate mergers that reduce competition and raise prices.

  3. Ban algorithms on grocery pricing to make it illegal for companies to raise the price of groceries based on a specific customer. 

  4. Make it illegal for food producers to reduce competition to increase prices using digital tools to collude: Stop companies from using algorithms to coordinate prices and supply information to drive up the cost.

 

Making Health Care Affordable:

Health care costs are spiraling out of control for North Carolina families. Insurance companies are blindsiding working people with surprise bills and denied claims and forcing them to pay more for plans that cover less. Meanwhile, attacks on health care coming out of Washington are spiking premium costs and threatening to take health care away from working families. 

As Governor, Roy Cooper was able to bring Democrats and Republicans together to make real progress on health care, expanding Medicaid and helping hundreds of thousands of working North Carolinians get access to health insurance. He will take that same common sense bipartisanship to Washington to make health care cost less the way he’s done his entire career.

  1. Let doctors decide about health care, not insurance bureaucrats. End insurance company runarounds by allowing doctors to make coverage decisions, and reform insurance company reviews that result in denial of coverage for what a doctor says you need.

  2. Reverse cuts that leave people without health insurance or unable to afford the coverage they have. North Carolina saw the largest drop of any state in Affordable Care Act enrollment. Reinstate the ACA tax credits and reverse Medicaid cuts. This will help lower costs for everyone’s premiums, including people who get their health insurance through an employer.

  3. Require Medicare to broaden negotiations with drug makers to make more prescription medicines affordable.

  4. Put patient care first at hospitals. Strengthen oversight of harmful hospital mergers and takeovers that put profits over patients.

  5. Crack down on pharmacy benefit managers and their middlemen who put small town pharmacists out of business and pocket savings instead of passing them along to patients.

  6. Curb surprise billing. Cap out-of-network charges for non-emergency care so that staying out-of-network isn’t a business strategy for health care companies, and designate emergency ground ambulance services as an essential health benefit—98% of emergency transport is unprotected.

  7. Cap annual prescription drug out-of-pocket costs for consumers.

  8. Prevent medical debt by mandating hospitals auto enroll in charity care, lowering drug and medical costs for all.

  9. Increase enforcement on upfront pricing to make health care costs transparent. Consumers should be able to shop around for the cost of common procedures and tests.

 

Lowering Energy + Utility Costs:

North Carolina families are being squeezed by energy costs that climb higher and higher each year. Electricity bills in North Carolina have risen 22 percent since 2020 with further increases on the horizon. Roy Cooper will work to deliver common-sense solutions that cut costs and protect families from being ripped off.

  1. Make sure data centers pay the full cost of all the power they use and prevent costs from being passed on to consumers.

  2. Reduce utility costs for consumers by working to encourage large tech companies to build their own energy sources.

  3. Ban utility companies from disconnecting power during dangerous heat and cold to keep families safe during periods of extreme weather.

  4. Modernize our energy grid to lower energy costs for consumers. Too much of our grid is old and inefficient. By modernizing parts of it we can increase reliability, create good-paying jobs and lower costs for families.