Giuliani Touts Role of Private Coverage in Addressing Uninsured
Republican Presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani this week made two appearances where he discussed several issues including health care, the AP/Winston-Salem Journal reports.
Speaking on Thursday at a one hour forum in Derry, N.H., Giuliani "focused on health care." He told the crowd that purchasing health insurance should resemble buying care or home insurance, in that people should buy their own plans with different deductibles and benefits.
His plan would give families a $15,000 tax deduction with which to buy private health plans. When asked by an audience member about Alzheimer's disease, Giuliani mentioned that his wife Judith has helped raise money to fight the disease (AP/Winston-Salem Journal, 8/17).
Giuliani on Tuesday in Columbia, S.C., addressed a crowd of about 100 people. He said tax credits, high deductibles and competition would provide health coverage for the uninsured more effectively than expanded government programs. Giuliani also criticized Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's support for universal health care.
He said, "What Hillary wants to do is not an American solution to the problem. It's a solution that marches us -- and boy do they get angry about this, but sometimes the truth hurts -- it marches us right to socialized medicine."
Giuliani did not answer questions from reporters at the Charleston appearance (Davenport, AP/Charleston Post and Courier, 8/15).
Although former Wisconsin Gov. and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson "barely made a blip in the presidential polls," in his stint as a Republican presidential candidate, his call to end breast cancer by 2015 deserves a long political life," writes a Boston Globe editorial.
Thompson said, "I am committed to deploying the vast resources of the United States toward the goal of ending breast cancer by 2015 just like President Kennedy committed our nation to the moon." He called for a "global fight" to change America's "status as a world leader" from that of "being the world's policeman" to being "the world's consulting physician," according to the Globe.
Even though eliminating breast cancer in eight years "is unlikely given the medical complexities," other "presidential candidates should heed Thompson's call -- but "refine his vision and its details," the Globe writes, concluding that "A president who recommits to the fight against cancer would also be recommitting the country to a larger fight to better the human lot" (Boston Globe, 8/17).