Edwards, Clinton Highlight Health Care Positions Over Labor Day
Presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) on Sunday in Tipton, Iowa, said that his health insurance proposal would require all U.S. residents to receive preventive care, the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports.
During a speech at the Cedar County Courthouse, Edwards said, "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK."
He added that the proposal would require health insurance for chronic and long-term care, as well as dental and vision care. "The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death," Edwards said.
Edwards also said that voters should ask all presidential candidates "one question: Does your plan cover every single American?" He added, "Because if it doesn't, they should be made to explain what child, what woman, what man in America is not worthy of health care. Because in my view, everybody is worth health care" (Lorentzen, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 9/2).
On Saturday, Edwards discussed health care and other issues at a private fundraiser at the home of a campaign volunteer in Edmond, Okla. Edwards said that new rules for the State Children's Health Insurance Program enrollment announced last month by the Bush administration would leave millions of residents without health insurance.
He said, "Expansion of SCHIP is an important initial step" in efforts to reduce the number of uninsured residents. Edwards added, "We need universal health care so every man and woman is covered. The health care system doesn't work" (Hoberock, Tulsa World, 9/2).
On Sunday, Edwards received the endorsements from the United Steelworkers of America and the United Mine Workers of America. He also has received an endorsement from the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (AP/USA Today, 9/3).
Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) this weekend during campaign events in Iowa and New Hampshire announced that she would seek "quality, affordable health care for every American" as part of her four goals as president, the Wall Street Journal reports (Calmes, Wall Street Journal, 9/4).
Her goals include efforts to "restore America's standing in the world," "rebuild America's middle class and the economy to support it," "reform our government" and "reclaim the future for our children" (Healy, New York Times, 9/3).
In addition, Clinton said that next week she plans to announce a proposal to expand health insurance to all U.S. residents (Balz, Washington Post, 9/3).
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on Monday at a Labor Day event in Philadelphia "vowed to make health care a national priority in the forthcoming presidential race," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Sweeney said that he would recruit millions of AFL-CIO members to call for changes to the U.S. health care system.
"Nobody should have to fear the consequences of getting sick," and businesses should not have to close because of high health care costs, he said (Von Bergen, Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/4).
In Congress, AFL-CIO and other labor unions plan to lobby for changes in corporate bankruptcy procedures that would limit the ability of businesses to avoid retiree health care and other obligations and an expansion of SCHIP.
Bill Samuel, legislative director for AFL-CIO, said, "We had a lot of ground to make up for after years of neglect by the Congress" (Dine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9/2).