A: We absolutely do need universal coverage. 47 million Americans do not have health insurance coverage, which means that they don’t stop getting sick; they don’t stop getting health care; they actually get it in the most ineffective and expensive way: in an emergency room. We can stop that, and we can create a more efficient health care system.
But it is much more than universal coverage. It is actually incorporating wellness into the system, at every level -- from the moment a child is born. So there are ways to do this without necessarily raising the tax burden on folks and certainly on working folks. You know, when working folks hear about tax increases, their interpretation is they may be next. And I think our party can do a better job being innovative and creative. We can look inside the budget.
A: Medicare’s a much more difficult issue than Social Security. First and foremost, we have to stop paying for services and we have to start paying for results. We know today because we have inadequate data about our health care system, that in some communities you’re more likely to get surgically worked on for a back injury than I might in some other community. [We should] take data and information about what works and what was the most efficient way of providing health care. That’s one strategy.
Another strategy is to make sure that we have a long-term care system that encourages people to stay in their homes with greater dignity, provides assisted living as an alternative, and only puts folks in nursing homes when they want to be and when they need to be. You can do a substantial amount of work in that regard.
A: Let’s be up front about the magnitude of the problem. If the US government were a corporation and they had to report to the shareholders, and they had to list the unfunded liability of Social Security and Medicare, can you imagine what that would look like on the balance sheet? Well, I’ll tell you, the most conservative number is $39 trillion. This has been mismanaged for an extended period of time.
A: First and foremost, you’re going to have to take a look at the way in which Social Security is indexed. Currently, it’s indexed based on wages and price. We can index it on price and still maintain the stability of Social Security and maintain the purchasing power of Social Security without necessarily jeopardizing the future of Social Security.
I’m here today because that’s not my America and it’s not your America. Five-year-olders should not be frightened in this country. And so I want to challenge every single one of you and ask the simple question: What have you done today to end this war in Iraq? It needs to be ended now, not six days from now, not six months from now, not six years from now, it needs to be ended now! And it’s up to you.
A: Congress takes the authority they have under the Constitution, and the moral authority that we expect them to show, and we say to the president, “Mr. President, we’re no longer going to fund this war.”
We’re in the middle of a civil war inside a civil war. It is not going to be responded to and answered militarily. It’s a political solution that is required, and only the Iraqis themselves have the power and the capacity to do it. As long as we are in the middle of this, that political resolution is actually being sidestepped; it is being delayed; it is not being enhanced by our presence there.
If we have troops to take anyplace or put anyplace in the world, let’s put them back in Afghanistan and let’s get the job done that we were supposed to do a number of years ago. Let’s find bin Laden. Let’s hold those folks who hurt us responsible.
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The above quotations are from State of Nevada Politicians: Archives.
Click here for other excerpts from State of Nevada Politicians: Archives. Click here for other excerpts by Tom Vilsack. Click here for a profile of Tom Vilsack.
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