Republican Senator Mitch McConnell was the guest speaker during the Morehead-Rowan County Chamber of Commerce luncheon last Thursday.
McConnell hit on some key issues for this year’s election. Those topics included the high gas prices and healthcare. He shared his plan for resolving the gas issue.
“The solution is to find more oil and use less. A reason for the high gas prices is there is high demand for oil,” he said. “ This caused the price per barrel to go up. Our plan will cut oil imports in half. We will be going from drilling 12 million to 6 million barrels a day.
“We need to find 3 million more barrels of oil per day. Eighty-five percent of our oil is located in the Continental Shelf and it is off limits. The reason why that reserve is forbidden is it’s considered to be an environmental issue and America is not the only country to operate this way,” McConnell said.
“Drilling on American soil would reduce the demand for oil,” he said. “The strength of the dollar depends on the price of oil. If the price of oil is high, the strength of the dollar is weakened.”
He touched on the issue of electric operated vehicles and how they can be an answer to the fuel crisis.
“Plug in cars and trucks are not in the too distant future,” McConnell said. “Soon we will be plugging in our cars and trucks in our garages because the delivery system is already in place.”
The issue of healthcare was brought up during a question and answer segment of the meeting. The question that was presented: What was to be done about the overwhelming healthcare problem? McConnell spoke of Great Britain and how their healthcare is free but their plan has its flaws.
“We have 40 million people who are uninsured. It is not to say that everyone is not cared for,” he said. “ Many are cared for and cannot pay the bill. That bill does not go unpaid because it falls to the rest of us. We can all agree that is not good.
“The question is how do we get them covered? We need to tackle the problem of the uninsured,” he said. “I know if you ask any physician or hospital administrator, that the cost of litigating is being passed to us.”
Gale Templeton, owner of the Tin Woof Inn, addressed the senator.
“Have you considered geothermal as a resource?” Templeton said. “Electricity prices will keep going up.”
McConnell said that would be a good idea but he asked Templeton how much it cost to put it in and how would it pay off. Templeton said the system would pay off within 10 years.
One chamber member gave her opinion of McConnell’s speech.
“I thought his speech was very urgent. It had the same message that Vice President Gore was saying about how the problem with energy will continue to grow,” said Gail-Lewis-Johnson, agent for East Ky Homefinders Real Estate.
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