Kerry courts senior voters, takes aim at
Bush health care policy
story.news.yahoo.com
HENDERSON, United States (AFP) - US Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry decried President
George W. Bush's health care policy, saying
Americans are paying too much for medication while neighboring
Canadians are able to buy cheaper prescription drugs.
Kerry tackled an issue dear to older voters
before a group of retirees in this Nevada town,
where he criticized a system that stops the
importation of cheaper drugs. Opinion polls
put health care among the top concerns of US
voters.
Many seniors in the United States travel to
Mexico or Canada to pay less for their
medication. The United States does not have
a universal health care system covering all
Americans.
"We ought to be able to import lower cost
drugs," said the Massachusetts senator, who
will face the Republican president in the
November 2 election.
Kerry said the Bush administration is allowing big companies to "get a
big windfall."
"It's the wrong priority for America," he said. "Why are Canadians able to
buy those drugs and you pay top prices?"
"I thought these people (in the Bush administration) were the ones who
believed in the market place, in fair competition," he said. "This is not fair
competition, this is monopoly."
Since the start of his campaign, Kerry has said his first proposal as
president would be to reform the health care system.
"For nearly four years, President Bush (news - web sites) has failed to
take meaningful steps to bring down rising health care costs," Kerry's
campaign said in a statement.
"While he has given millions away to HMOs (health maintenance
organizations) and pharmaceutical companies, families have been
squeezed by rising premiums, seniors have suffered trying to get their
medicine and small businesses have struggled to compete and create
jobs."
A Time magazine poll this week showed 11 percent of Americans say
health care is their top concern. It ranks fifth behind the economy, Iraq
(news - web sites), terrorism and "moral values."
A Zogby International poll in July showed health care was in third place
behind the economy and terrorism, while Iraq ranked fourth.
According to Time, 54 percent of Americans say Kerry would handle
health care better than Bush (36 percent).
"When I am president, we will stop being the only advanced nation in the
world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the
wealthy and the connected and the elected -- it is a right for all
Americans," Kerry said at last month's Democratic National Convention.
In December, Bush signed into law a bill reforming the country's
Medicare system, which covers seniors. The new law offers partial
reimbursements for prescription drugs, but Democrats say the law does
not go far enough. |
