John McCain
Town Hall Meeting
07/07/08
TRANSCRIPT:
QUESTIONER: "[...] I recently met a man named Frank from Colorado Springs who falls into the Medicare Part D donut hole. And I've heard your answers here that [...] if we do what we did 20 years ago with [...] Medicare what we did with Social Security and go back and really kind of fix the problem. Do you have a more concrete answer for what you do for somewhat like Frank who's a veteran like yourself, in a wheelchair, amputee, and can't pay [...] his prescription drug bill?
JOHN MCCAIN: "Well the first thing that I would do is make sure that, if he's a veteran, that he gets vet—eligibility for veterans' care. [...] Now we all know about Walter Reed and we know about some of the problems of veterans health care. But there is a flip side to that. And there's a lot of veterans health care facilities that are wonderful [...].
Second of all, [...] there's Social Security disability payments, there are other programs. But if he's not eligible [...] I will make sure that we address that issue [...] A Medi-gap issue is there and we're gonna have to address it as well and put a fix in. No American should go without health care; that's one of the obligations of our society.
MCCAIN: "But I also have to tell you if the costs of health care continue to skyrocket, and we don't do anything about that, we're not gonna have affordable and available health care for any American. And we have got to get those costs under control because there are not incentives now for people to keep health care costs down. And that's many of the proposals that I have outlined. Including [...] outcome-based care. [...] There's a pilot program, which has been very successful. It's called cash-in counseling, where we have given seniors actually the money in order to take care of their own health care needs. [...]
MCCAIN: "As far as people are in these different doughnuts—and there are a number of them—obviously we have to fix them and we have to fill them. [...]
MCCAIN: "And I'd be glad to hear from you and hear from Frank and see exactly how we can help him immediately without working on any specific government program [...]"
LABEL: JM CO 7-7 (SD#24) GIDT-ClipJ
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He didn't answer the question. She asked about medications. She went wrong when she said the word veteran. It triggers a planned response when he hears the word.
When did we ever have incentives to keep healthcare costs down? Never. If everyone in the medical field wanted to keep their pay at the same level forever (including company profits), that would still keep us at the same rate we are at now, not lower healthcare costs. Still out of reach for millions of people. If he really wanted all of these changes, why has he not introduced a bill yet? Oh, that's right, he wasn't running for President then.