Starting this month, small businesses in North Carolina will have a new option to provide health insurance to their employees. The Carolina HealthWorks program launched this week following a change the legislature made to insurance regulations last year.
The N.C. Chamber is working with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina to offer the insurance plans. Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey says businesses with a small number of employees struggle with high costs to offer insurance coverage. Banding together through a chamber of commerce will mean lower premium rates.
"This will be, I believe, a game changer for small business, because any small business that's a member of a local chamber (of commerce) or the North Carolina Chamber can now participate in that group health insurance, from anywhere from two employees to 50 employees," Causey said at Tuesday's Council of State meeting. He said his agency has worked to expedite regulatory approvals for the new program.
After years of decline, businesses are a far cry from the glory days of being ‘Furniture Capital of the World’ amid price hikes and supply chain snafus
WSJ Coverage of NC Furniture Industry
Toyota Showcased Battery Plant at Opening Ceremony
Four years after it was announced, Toyota’s massive battery plant southeast of Greensboro marked entrance into production Wednesday as the automaker’s only North American maker of batteries for electrified vehicles, the largest industrial investment ever in North Carolina, and Toyota’s largest U.S. investment yet.
Production began in the spring at the Randolph County campus, and the first battery modules were shipped to a Toyota-Mazda joint-venture assembly plant in June. Wednesday’s event was the culmination of four years of planning, building and breaking in manufacturing on the way to a $14 billion investment and 5,100 employees by the early 2030s.
Randolph Community College (RCC) officially welcomed Dennis Mabe, Chief Executive Officer of Randolph Electric Membership Corporation (REMC), as its newest member of the Board of Trustees during the Board’s meeting on Oct. 16 in the Martha Luck Comer Foundation Conference Center, RCC announced in a press release.
“I’m honored for the opportunity to serve our community,” Mabe said. “At
[REMC], we value meaningful connections, and community colleges have always been a part of my journey. I was a dual-enrollment student who completed my associate degree at Sandhills Community College, and years later, when I returned to pursue my MBA, I took additional courses at RCC — even a few just for personal enrichment. Community colleges have shaped my life in many ways.
“In my column in the November edition of Carolina Country magazine, I pay tribute to the teachers at Sandhills who helped guide me along the way.”
Mabe, a lifelong advocate for community service and local development, brings more than three decades of experience in leadership, engineering, and operations to the College’s governing board.
Local News and Announcements
Asheboro Mall Christmas Events:
Asheboro Mall, 1437 E. Dixie Drive, invites shoppers and families to experience the joy of Christmas through a lineup of festive activities, seasonal décor and family-friendly fun throughout the season.
Guests may shop, dine and enjoy entertainment while creating lasting memories with friends and family.
There will be opportunities for children to visit with Santa and have their picture taken from Nov. 28-Dec. 24. Time slots may be booked in advance online, and photo packages will be available for purchase.
Toyota Will Grow Workforce and Randolph County Prosperity:
As big as Toyota’s battery plant is, it’s getting bigger. How big depends in part on how big demand gets for electrified cars, SUVs and trucks.
That was one of the key take-aways from the celebration and open house last week marking the recent start of production shipping at the world’s largest automaker’s 1,850-acre factory near Liberty southeast of Greensboro.
The 1,850-acre megasite has four production lines now making batteries for hybrid vehicles, including the Camry, Corolla and Rav4 hybrid versions, shipping to Toyota assembly plants in Kentucky and Alabama.
Asheboro city and Randolph County leaders have approved a half-million-dollar incentive package to attract a major business expansion — a project now being referred to as project "Golden Wind.”
During a special joint meeting Monday, both the Asheboro City Council and the Randolph County Board of Commissioners voted to approve over $500,000 in incentives for an unnamed company that’s considering moving into an existing building in Randolph County. If the company chooses the location, that building would need to be annexed into the City of Asheboro.
As North Carolina continues to earn praise for its economic development, the state's community college system is playing a major role in workforce training.
"What sets us apart is our talent and our ability to produce more talent all the time. No other southeastern state can boast our community college system, with 58 institutions that are nimbly presenting new curricula that meet the needs of these companies," said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Lee Lilley, who was recently part of a delegation to travel to Japan in efforts to attract further investment in the state.
Jasmine Kroll has reopened her restaurant with a different menu but the same philosophy.
“Food is more than just nourishment,” she said. “It’s a way to uplift people and build the community.”
With the help of Debra Garner, she did a soft opening in October of Chives: Southern, Soul, Creole. She returned to the building at 746 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive where her Gather sushi restaurant had been a popular eatery until she had health problems.
While Kroll was recovering, she rented the restaurant to another chef whose specialty was Caribbean selections. When he returned to the islands, Kroll said, “I was ready to come back.”
Novant to Offer Premium Liver Cancer Treatment in NC:
Novant Health is the first health system in the Carolinas to offer an innovative liver cancer treatment that destroys tumor cells without surgery.
The Edison Histotripsy System is available at the Novant Health Derrick L. Davis Cancer Institute in Winston-Salem and uses ultrasound waves to target and eliminate tumor cells while minimizing damage to surrounding tissue.
Without making any incisions, the outpatient procedure delivers a series of waves that generate microbubbles within the diseased tissue, causing the tumor to break down and dissolve.
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