Presidential Candidates Clinton, Thompson Discuss Health Care

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 24 Oct 2007 - 5:00 PDT

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Summaries of two recent developments in presidential campaigns related to health care appear below.

• Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.): Clinton on Sunday at the East Las Vegas Community Center held a discussion that focused on health care and invited audience members to discuss their problems with the U.S. health care system, the Las Vegas Sun reports. Clinton said, "People are standing up across Nevada and across America and saying, 'Enough.' It is time to have quality and affordable health care for all Americans." According to Clinton, health care reform will require a coalition of medical professionals and advocates for middle-class residents to demand change in the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. During the event, Clinton brought on stage two women -- one of whom has multiple sclerosis and one who is a breast cancer survivor -- who discussed their problems with the health care system (Coolican, Las Vegas Sun, 10/22). Clinton said that her health care proposal would help address the problems. She said, "Everybody has a story. Everybody is concerned about the future," adding, "This is going to have to be approached as a shared responsibility." Health care is "a real problem, and it's a problem we need to have an election about," Clinton said (Ball, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 10/22).
  
  
• Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.): Thompson on Monday at the Port of Tampa, in reference to a question about the Terry Schiavo case, said that neither the federal nor state governments should interfere in decisions on end-of-life care for patients, the St. Petersburg Times reports (Frank, St. Petersburg Times, 10/23). Thompson said, "I had to face a situation with that in my own personal life with my own daughter," Elizabeth Thompson Panici, who died of an accidental drug overdose in 2002 at age 38 after she spent six days on life support in the hospital. "I will assure you one thing, no matter which decision you make, you will never know whether or not you made exactly the right decision," he said, adding, "It should be decided by families. The federal government and the state government, too -- except for the court system -- ought to stay out of it, as far as I'm concerned" (Quaid, AP/Miami Herald, 10/22).
  

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