Democratic Challenger Says Senator May Have ‘Another Chance to Get it Right’

(CHAPEL HILL) — Democrat Jim Neal, a businessman and investment banker running for the U.S. Senate, today said his opponent may have “another chance to get it right’ if a bi-partisan measure to provide health care coverage to more than four million uninsured children of working parents is brought back up in the Senate, where it passed by more than a two-thirds margin late last month before being vetoed by President George W. Bush.

“Senator Dole may have another chance to get it right,” Neal said. “And if she won’t support providing health insurance to eligible North Carolina kids, she should at least give up the health insurance their taxpaying parents provide for her.”

Dole was one of only 29 Senators who voted against the bi-partisan State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming majorities. The President vetoed the bill last week, triggering the likelihood that it will be brought back up again for an override vote.

“It’s time to put North Carolina children first and Washington politics last,” Neal said.

Neal said the additional SCHIP funding Dole voted against amounts to just 12 weeks of what U.S. taxpayers are already spending on the open-ended conflict in Iraq, according to official figures. The measure would have provided health coverage to an estimated 120,000 North Carolina children whose parents have jobs but earn too little to afford insurance on their own and too much to qualify for Medicaid.

The grandson of a carpenter, public school teacher and two mill workers, Neal was born in Greensboro in 1956, where he attended public school. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1978. Following graduation he joined Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst. He returned to school at the University of Chicago, where he earned an MBA and worked a series of part-time jobs to pay his way through school.

As an investment banker at Salomon Brothers, Neal earned a reputation for leadership and innovative strategies while advising Fortune 500 companies on how to play successful roles in a changing global economy. He also worked as a senior investment banker with E.F Hutton and Bear Stearns, serving clients that ranged from Bank of America and American Express to Lincoln National Corporation and Transamerica.

For the past two decades, Neal has focused his career on information technology and healthcare companies, including serving as chief executive officer of RxMarketplace.com, a start-up firm that helped pharmacists offer patients prescription drugs at more affordable prices. Since 2000, Neal has led several private companies prior to founding The Agema Group, a financial advisory firm based in Chapel Hill.

Neal has continued his active involvement in nonprofit groups and political initiatives. A member of the Board of Governors of the New School from 2002 to 2006, he also served as a national finance committee member for Wes Clark for President and the Kerry-Edwards campaigns, as well as acting as a national fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles in 2004.

Neal has served his community as an overnight volunteer at a homeless shelter, a lay minister to mentally ill residents of an assisted-care facility, and a sponsor of a post-war Vietnamese refugee family in alliance with the International Rescue Committee.

Neal lives in Chapel Hill with the younger of his two sons, Winston. The oldest, James, is currently working in New York City.

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