Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support the IDS in College Media Madness! Donate here March 24 - April 8.
Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Head to Head: Democrats care about families

Democrats have long stood by lower and middle income Americans in their fight for quality, affordable health care coverage.\nVice President Al Gore's plan for ensuring a continued commitment on health care includes a comprehensive patients' bill of rights, a prescription drug benefit for people on Medicare and expanded health care coverage for children and working families.\nIn an address at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Gore said, "For more than 50 years, we have been engaged in a battle to provide the kind of health care a great nation owes its people. Now, after that long century of effort, conflict and concern, it is time to move past theoretical and philosophical divisions -- beyond a sterile debate about labels and abstractions -- to ask how we can now take concrete, specific realistic steps to improve health coverage for all the American people." Democrats believe decisions on health care should be left to families and their doctors, not HMOs and insurance companies. \nDemocrats have always fought for families. And now is a time for leadership that will do just that during the next four years. President Kennedy said, before passage of Medicare, that, "Whenever the miracles of modern medicine are beyond the reach of any group of Americans, for whatever reason -- economic, geographic, occupational or other -- we must find a way to meet their needs and fulfill their hopes. For one true measure of a nation is its success in fulfilling the promise of a better life for each of its members." \nThe American economy has never been stronger and more vibrant than it is today. More Americans have jobs, can afford to buy their first homes and are better off now under eight years of Democratic leadership than in recent history. But those few who have been left behind must not be forgotten. And there are more than 43 million Americans who lack health coverage today.\nWith today's strong economy, America can afford to propose new initiatives to provide health care coverage for its children, seniors and those of lesser means. A Gore-Lieberman White House would help all of us attain affordable, quality health care. \nFor children and the working poor, Democrats would "expand health care coverage to every child and to millions of adults by building on the existing Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)," according to the Gore-Lieberman campaign. "Because 85 percent of parents in families with children eligible for CHIP are themselves living without health insurance, the Gore-Lieberman plan would expand CHIP to 7 million working parents." \nSeniors would receive increased long-term care assistance in the form of a $3,000 tax credit, in a time when many members of the fast-growing group are in desperate need. \nAll Americans would benefit from an enforceable, meaningful patients' bill of rights that would leave health care decisions to families and doctors and take them away from HMO and insurance company bureaucrats. \n"Al Gore and I will respond to the health care emergency facing America's working families," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Gore's vice presidential running mate. "We will stand up to the pharmaceutical industry to fight for a prescription drug benefit for everyone on Medicare. We will take medical decisions out of the hands of HMOs and make sure every child has access to health care coverage."\nAsk yourself whom you want representing you in Washington -- someone who will fight for your interests instead of special interests? Or the other guy?

Get stories like this in your inbox
Subscribe