Warner pushes health care at grassroots event
Governor Warner was a keynote speaker at today’s Families USA “Health Action 2008” conference in Washington. About 700 grassroots health care advocates from across the nation gathered for the three-day conference.
“It’s great to be here today with so many people who “get it,” who understand and appreciate the need for broad reform in health care,” Governor Warner said.
He talked about his experience in health care reform: as a private citizen before he was governor, he helped found the Virginia Health Care Foundation, a public-private partnership that promotes access to primary health care and helps fund a range of innovative programs.
“The Foundation has helped provide hundreds of thousands of people with access to health care. It has formed creative partnerships with drug companies to provide low-cost – sometimes even NO-cost – medications to seniors and those in need. The Virginia Health Care Foundation is something that I’m very proud of.”
Governor Warner also talked about the Web-based information and referral network called SeniorNavigator, a non-profit organization that provides free information about health and aging resources in order to easily share medical information:
“You see, my mom has Alzheimer’s. And as my family looked around for useful information, for available services, even for a simple list of local support groups for my dad and her, we were baffled that there was so little useful information gathered in one place for caregivers. ...
“It was this background in IT and telecommunications that prompted me to offer myself for public office in the first place. And as Governor of Virginia, we had success in bringing business-like reforms to state government on a broad level. And no public policy area in American government cries out more for a comprehensive and technology-based solution than health care.”
Before delivering his keynote address, Governor Warner took part in a radio round table with talk radio hosts from across the country. You can listen to the interview below or by clicking here.
UPDATE: 1/25/07: David Lerman posted this story on the Governor’s appearance on the Daily Press’s “Shad Plank”.
If he wins a U.S. Senate seat this fall, Democrat Mark Warner says, he plans to form a group of 8 to 12 moderates from both political parties to craft bipartisan solutions on tough issues like health care reform.
His name for the group? The ``Radical Centrists.’‘
Our take on the name? Sounds like a rock band.
But Warner, who steered a middle course as governor of a conservative ``red’’ state, stressed his eagerness to find common ground as he spoke to a friendly crowd of health-care advocates in Washington on Thursday.
``Health care reform should not be a partisan issue,” he said.