U.S. Sen. John McCain and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell told a Charlotte audience this morning that Congress and the president should "start over" on health care reform.

"It's time we started back at the beginning," McCain of Arizona told medical professionals at Carolinas Medical Center, reports Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer.

The two Republicans joined GOP Sen. Richard Burr in the invitation-only town hall that drew about 250 people to a hospital auditorium.

The three acknowledged that health reform is needed. But they advocated a go-slow, incremental approach and criticized Democratic proposals.

"Our goal ought not to be to have the cheapest health care in the world," said McConnell, of Kentucky, adding that government-run health care would lead to "massive rationing."

He also said reaction from people who have swarmed public meetings across the country on health care could help slow the process.

"The reaction of the American people has been helpful to us in achieving our goal, which is a little more modest and (doing) it the right way," McConnell said.

In a later conference call with reporters, Democratic U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina said Republicans' plan wouldn't help consumers.

"It really leaves the individual right where they are today," he said, "to negotiate with the insurance companies. And they don't have the muscle or the authority to deal with them in order to get the costs down."

In contrast to other meetings on the subject, the hospital gathering was civil. One Charlotte doctor, however, questioned the senators' statements that Americans have "the best heath care in the world." Dr. David Jacobs, a surgeon, also questioned McCain's suggestion that the real number of uninsured Americans is 12 million to 15 million, not the 47 million often quoted.

"On both sides of the fence, I don't think the American people are hearing the whole story," Jacobs said.

The hospital system welcoming Republican heavyweight Sens. John McCain and Mitch McConnell on Tuesday has spent $1.2 million in the past 18 months lobbying Congress, reports Barb Barrett.

Carolinas HealthCare Systems, which runs 25 hospitals in Charlotte and South Carolina, will host a health-care event Tuesday for Sen. Richard Burr. Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, is running for re-election in 2010.

McCain, the GOP presidential candidate last year, and McConnell, the Senate majority leader, will speak at the event.

Carolinas Healthcare Systems was one of North Carolina’s biggest lobbying spenders on health care issues in the past two years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group in Washington that tracks spending in politics. The hospital’s lobbying documents show that it is interested in health reform, pharmacy legislation and issues related to Medicare and Medicaid.

Spokesman Kevin McCarthy said earlier this summer that in the context of the current health reform debate, the hospital system wants to increase Medicare reimbursements to doctors and help uninsured and underinsured patients find a medical home.

Sen. John McCain, the Republicans' 2008 nominee for president, and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell are expected to join Republican Sen. Richard Burr in Charlotte on Tuesday for a "hospital forum" at Carolinas Medical Center.

The Charlotte Observer reports that with hospital employees and Burr's invited guests attending, there will likely be little room for the public in an auditorium that holds fewer than 300 people, said a spokeswoman for Carolinas HealthCare System.

The 90-minute event is at 9 a.m. Calls to Burr's spokesman were not returned Sunday.

Like Burr, McCain, R-Ariz., and McConnell, R-Ky., oppose many of the Democrats' proposals for health care reform, including a public option that would compete with private insurance companies.

Burr, up for re-election in 2010, has offered an alternative that would give tax credits of up to $5,700 for families to pay for health insurance.

State employees' pensions are no longer public record?

Whoa, there.

That’s not what the authors of the law say they intended. Just the opposite, in fact.

Sen. Richard Stevens, a Wake County Republican, said today that he and other senators were trying to open public records regarding all forms of compensation for state employees when they passed a bill last summer clarifying state personnel records.

The impetus was opening the hidden records of officials at Carolinas Healthcare System in Charlotte. But Stevens said the bill was even broader.

"We all agreed that any state money given to an employee should be fully disclosed," he said.

Stevens did offer an amendment on the floor, supported by the committee, which made it clear some records are not public, including whom one chooses as a beneficiary or which funds one chooses for 401K investments.

He was surprised to learn that the Attorney General's office had interpreted the bill for the State Treasurer's office as making state pension records secret.

"It is either being interpreted incorrectly or we'll have to go back and fix it," Stevens said. "That clearly wasn't the intent."

The state treasurer’s office is no longer making public the pensions of state retirees, citing a prohibition in a 2007 law that had been originally intended to give the public more access to the pay and perks of public officials.

Senate Bill 1546 was initially intended to make bonuses, incentives and other compensation public, reports Dan Kane.

State Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat, filed the legislation after the Carolinas Healthcare System denied that information to The Charlotte Observer. But as the bill moved its way through the Senate, changes were made to limit other information that had previously been public, including pensions.

It’s unclear who added the provision that now prevents the treasurer from disclosing how much taxpayers are paying for a state employee’s pension.

Sara Lang, a spokeswoman for State Treasurer Richard Moore, said no one there requested the change.

“We didn’t ask for this,” she said. “This is the legislation that was passed, and then the Attorney General’s office interpreted it for us, and we’re following the law.”

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Senate leaders say they have reached agreement with the House on two public records bills.

One would make sure all compensation for most public employees would be public, while the other would prevent the public from seeing the terms of medical practice purchase agreements with public hospitals, Dan Kane reports.

Both bills arose from lawsuits by newspapers against public hospitals that had denied information requests. The bills are being merged into one piece of legislation that cleared the Senate this afternoon but has yet to be taken up in the House.

State Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat, said House and Senate conferees settled on a compromise that requires public hospitals to report the total compensation for the top five administrators and the top five salaried officials.

That mirrors what private nonprofit hospitals have to provide in their tax returns, which are public record, Hoyle said.

Update: The House and Senate overhwelmingly approved the bills, which now head to the governor.

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The state Senate rejected the House version of a bill that would have made all forms of compensation for public employees public, save for those working public hospitals.

The House's addition of that exception led the author of the bill, state Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston County Democrat, to urge his colleagues to vote not to concur, Dan Kane reports.

"There was no resemblance to what I sent over," Hoyle said.

The no vote means a conference committee of House and Senate members will try to reach a compromise before the end of the session.

Hoyle had filed the bill after the Carolinas HealthCare System had refused to provide the total compensation paid to its executives to the Charlotte Observer. The system would only provide salaries.

The newspaper sued, but lost at the appellate level.

That court decision has led other government agencies to begin denying requests for the total compensation paid to their officials.

A House judiciary committee moved a bill that would prevent most public entities from shielding an employee's total compensation package, but not before excluding public hospitals from the proposal.

That's an interesting twist to legislation that came as a result of The Charlotte Observer's failed efforts at learning the total compensation paid to administrators at the Carolinas HealthCare System, Dan Kane reports.

Often, top officials receive substantial additional compensation through bonuses, take-home cars and other perks.

The newspaper unsuccessfully sued after the system would only provide salaries. The state Court of Appeals ruled that state law gives public hospitals special protections so they can better compete with private hospitals.

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