Escanaba Women’s Club Candidates Forum

Delta County woman get to hear first-hand from the U.P.’s candidates for Congress, and the people trying to take over for one of those candidates in Lansing.

Escanaba State Rep Tom Casperson can’t run again because of term limits, so he’s running for Congress instead.

He says he’d make more of an effort in Washington to meet with small business owners.

Casperson also says he supports the idea of a small government that doesn’t interfere much in the economy.

However, Congressman Bart Stupak feels a lack of government oversight of banks and mortgage companies is one of the main reasons the national financial crisis got started.

He says he voted against both of the Wall Street bailout bills in the House because they didn’t include any form of accountability for the banks’ mistakes.

Judy Nerat and Mike Falcon are trying to follow Casperson in the State House 108th District.

They both recognize that doctors leaving the southern U.P. is a major problem.

However, they have different ideas of what to do about it.

Nerat, a Democrat, said she believes it comes back to a weak job market.

She says one of the byproducts of that is a high percentage of people who don’t have health insurance coverage, and it’s more expensive for physicians to treat uninsured patients than those with coverage.

Falcon, a Republican, said he’d look into lowering the costs of malpractice insurance, which doctors have to buy to cover their own practices.

He says malpractice insurance is much cheaper in Wisconsin than in Michigan.

Election Day is just 20 days away.

All 4 of the candidates will be among those in Marquette for a similar event tomorrow night.