(Cross-posted at The Albany Project)
Le Roy, NY: TAP took a road trip yesterday with Jon Powers, Iraq War veteran and the endorsed Democratic candidate in NY-26 to discuss health care and education. First Powers met with approximately twenty senior citizens on Thursday to discuss health care at The Greens, an independent senior living community in the 26th District. After a brief overview of his newly released Healthcare Policy where Powers noted "The reason these solutions are having to come from the bottom up is because we have a failure in Washington," Powers took questions from senior citizens.
(I reserve all rights to my photos.)
Here, a brief synopsis of Powers' Healthcare Policy: providing access to health insurance and making it affordable, passing SCHIP expansion to cover working class families earning 300% of the federal poverty level or approximately $60K/Yr. for a family of 4, creating a healthcare purchasing exchange similar to what members of Congress enjoy, a Medicare Buy-in option, mandatory COBRA to age 65, increasing access to medical facilities and allowing National Guardsmen and Reservists to be eligible for TRICARE.
Powers' plan also calls for lowering the cost of prescription drugs and, because of our proximity to Canada, allowing prescription drug reimportation if the prescriptions are safe and more affordable. Powers also calls for breaking up monopolies and increasing competition, citing the 400 healthcare mergers in the past decade.
Additionally, Powers' plan calls for electronic medical records to save money (and potentially avert health problems in emergencies), aid for small businesses for catastrophic care, phasing out of excessive Medicare overpayments to HMOs, and ensuring premiums are spent on patients.
After listening to seniors' concerns about the high costs of prescriptions and various causes, one woman asked Powers about health insurance companies assessing risk pools like those for auto insurance. Powers' answer was simple and direct: "Take away the incentive for it."
Powers also stated:
"Our solutions aren't going to all come from Washington. We as a community have to start addressing them. As your Congressman, I can help drive that dialogue."
Powers then provided the example of a teacher in a nearby town, Jim Thompson, who saw kids stealing lunches on Fridays and Mondays because they were hungry. Instead of asking for more taxpayer-funded solutions, Thompson went to seniors, churches and community groups to provide backpacks of food for 20 families to take home so long as they return the backpacks each week.
Powers concluded by emphasizing the community approach to solving our problems, helping others to help themselves. Powers referenced the 30% poverty level in Rochester and called it "criminal in New York State" to have such poverty. He linked health care, education and vocational training as solutions to rectifying this problem.
Powers summed up his past year when he said:
"It's not what happens on September 9th and November 4th; it's what we do with it in January. Other candidates want to be a congressman. I'm running to be your representative."
If hard work trekking all over the district counts, and it certainly does, Jon Powers already is the 26th Congressional District's representative.
And with that summation, Powers hit the road and headed an hour away to Lockport to host a teacher's round table...
Part Two of TAP's road trip with Jon Powers to follow later today...
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