Robert Fromberg
Editor-in-Chief, HFMA
Watching the candidates speak after the 2008 Iowa caucuses was completed, I began noting how health care featured in each speech. Following are healthcare-related excerpts from speeches by the top two finishing candidates in each party, along with links to the speech transcripts and each candidate’s healthcare position statement.
Mike Huckabee
No explicit reference to health care in Huckabee's Iowa caucuses victory speech, but the following passage might be construed as relevant to health care:
G.K. Chesterton once said that a true soldier fights not because he hates those who are in front of him, but because he loves those who are behind him. Ladies and gentlemen, I recognize that running for office, it's not hating those who are in front of us. It's loving those who are behind us.
Huckabee speech transcript.
Huckabee healthcare position.
Barack Obama
Healthcare-related excerpt from Obama's Iowa caucuses victory speech:
I'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available to every single American, the same way I expanded health care in Illinois, by bringing Democrats and Republicans together to get the job done….
Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill. A young woman who still believes that this country will give her the chance to live out her dreams.
Obama speech transcript.
Obama healthcare position.
Mitt Romney
Romney’s Iowa caucuses speech did not refer to health care.
Romney speech transcript.
Romney healthcare position.
John Edwards
Edwards’ Iowa caucuses speech excerpts related to health care:
[J]ust a few weeks ago in America, Nataline Sarkisian, a 17- year-old girl who had a -- needed a liver transplant, and whose insurance company decided they wouldn’t pay for her liver transplant operation.
Finally, her nurses spoke up on her behalf. Her doctors spoke up on her behalf. Ultimately, the American people spoke up on her behalf by marching and picketing in front of her health insurance carrier. And, finally, the insurance carrier caved in and agreed to pay for her operation. And when they notified the family just a few hours later, she died. She lost her life. Why? Why?
James Lowe was born 51 years ago in the United States of America with a severe cleft palate, which kept him from being able to speak. And he lived for 50 years in the greatest, most prosperous nation on the planet, not able to speak because he didn’t have health-care coverage and couldn’t pay for a simple operation. Why?...
And this is what I see in America today. I see an America where last year, the CEO of one of the largest health insurance companies in America made hundreds of millions of dollars -- in one year....
Tonight, 47 million Americans will go to bed knowing that if their child gets sick, they’ll have to go to the emergency room and beg for health care. Tomorrow morning, women will go to their doctor and be diagnosed with breast cancer, just like Elizabeth was. But unlike Elizabeth, they’ll have no health care coverage. And as a result, they know that they can’t go to the emergency room and get chemotherapy. What are they supposed to do? What are they supposed to do? You can literally see the fear and terror in their eyes.
Edwards speech transcript.
Edwards healthcare position.
