For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Contact:
Zandra Rice Hawkins
Phone: 603-892-2150

SEN. MCCAIN HAS THE DELEGATES – NOW HEALTH CARE VOTERS CALL ON HIM TO FILL IN THE GAPS

Health Care Voters Urge Sen. McCain To Come Up With a Real Plan To Make Quality Health Care Affordable for All Americans

Exeter, New Hampshire –As Senator John McCain returns to New Hampshire for the first time since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, Health Care Voters will greet him at his Exeter "Thank You" Town Hall to congratulate him and continue to pressure him to fill in the many gaps in his health care proposal.

In his nomination acceptance speech on March 4th, Sen. McCain said: “I will campaign to make health care more accessible to more Americans with reforms that will bring down costs in the health care industry without ruining the quality of the world’s best medical care.”¹

But for the over 75,000 Health Care Voters here in New Hampshire, “more” isn’t enough –- we need a president who will ensure every American has access to quality, affordable health care. Currently, over 47 million Americans do not have health care coverage, including 150,000 New Hampshire residents.

“If we wait to fix the problem, it’ll only get worse,” said John Thyng, state director of New Hampshire for Health Care. “Real change needs to happen on the federal level. We need a president who is dedicated to finding solutions so everyone in America has access to quality, affordable health care.”

One of the glaring omissions in Sen. McCain’s health care proposal is a commitment to stop insurance companies from discriminating against individuals who have a pre-existing condition, like cancer survivors. Instead of preventing the insurance companies from picking and choosing only the healthiest people to provide coverage, Sen. McCain has instead proposed tax incentives.²

“As a medical billing secretary, I have witnessed for many years patients being denied insurance coverage because of their medical history, including birth anomalies or surviving a fight with cancer,” said Ann Delaney, a Health Care Voter from Manchester. “Senator McCain needs to recognize the gaps in his health care proposal and put patients’ needs before the insurance companies.”

What: Republican presidential nominee Sen. McCain asked to fill in the gaps on his health care proposal

When: Wednesday, March 12th at 2:00 PM

Where: Exeter Town Hall, 10 Front St., Exeter

Who: Health Care Voters and other interested parties

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Sources:

¹ http://www.johnmccain.com/, see Victory Speech.

² http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/, see John McCain on Health Care, October 11, 2007.

New Hampshire for Health Care, a project of SEIU, is part of Americans for Health Care, a national grassroots campaign pushing for access to quality, affordable health care for every American. For more information visit www.NHforHealthCare.org.