Posted on 08/04/2005 5:59:22 AM PDT by madprof98
Health care main focus of remarks
With his recent heart surgery as a reference point, former President Bill Clinton spent most of a session with black journalists Wednesday talking about health care issues. But first, he had some choice words about Georgia's new voter ID law.
"All over America there are efforts to restrict access to the vote under the guise of preventing voter fraud. And I say guise --- look at this Georgia bill, all the ID you've got to produce to register to vote," Clinton said at the opening session of the National Association of Black Journalists convention at the downtown Hyatt Regency hotel.
Clinton called on Congress and the Bush administration to support extension of the portions of the Voting Rights Act that would otherwise expire in 2007, and he said he thought voting rights should be extended to those who have been convicted of a crime and served their sentence.
Clinton also dealt with a question about the presidential ambitions of his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). She would be "the best there ever was" if she became president, but he didn't know if his wife would run, Clinton said.
But for most of a brief speech and question-and-answer session, Clinton focused on a range of health care questions, from childhood obesity in the United States to AIDS in Africa.
Clinton, who had quadruple heart bypass surgery last year, said he was feeling better than he had in years, but said the experience left him more determined to do something about the nation's health care problems, which are "horrible for this country and the future of our economy."
Clinton said the nation doesn't pay enough attention to preventive medicine, while it spends more on average than any other country on the last two months of life.
"We may be the most religious country in the world, but we're also the most reluctant to go to heaven," the former president said.
Clinton said he had become involved in a project with the American Heart Association on childhood obesity, which he said threatened to make America's children "the first generation to have a life expectancy lower than their parents," due to heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses.
He cited an Emory University study that he said showed that 27 percent of the growth in health care spending can be related to rising obesity levels.
The former president said the William J. Clinton Foundation had made progress in bringing down the cost of treatment and testing for AIDS to $160 per person a year in six African countries, India, China and other AIDS hot spots around the world. For $500 million a year, he noted, treatment could be provided to every AIDS sufferer in the world.
Yet only 25,000 of the 500,000 children with AIDS worldwide are receiving care, he said.
"This is literally an organizational and money problem," Clinton said.
This was Clinton's third appearance at an NABJ convention. He attended the 1992 convention in Detroit as a candidate for president, then returned as president to the 1997 convention in Chicago.
All the ID you've got to produce is your driver's license. It's what you need to get on an airplane.
Bubba,
You need to suck a cup of STFU.
in cordial disdain,
the Adults in the Great State of Georgia
The double speak begins. All efforts to stop voter fraud will be demagogued as rascist so they can continue their nasty little scam.
I never cease to be amazed at how Democrats as a whole are so blatantly against anything that legitimizes elections.
And I am even more amazed that people fall into line with that view....
ping
"For $500 million a year... treatment could be provided to every AIDS sufferer in the world... this is literally an organizational and money problem,"
Well, it may be a problem. But it's certainly not MY problem. If you want to make it yours, more power to you.
And some won't be let in at all.
Yes and they are pushing hard for felon's (dem base) voting rights.
Voter fraud is the rats last strong suit. They will fight to protect it like the Japanese fought in the islands campaign.
He must think Orygun's is the best.
He wants to be able to vote again.
I am not surpised that clinton is involved in childhood obesity. He is going to counsel overweight teen age girls in the art of not swalling to keep the weight off
...and cash a check, and rent a car. Why the demand that voting be less secure than those things? (Never mind, it's a rhetorical question.)
Only if you're a Communists. Otherwise, you'd hate her.
I never cease to be amazed at how Democrats as a whole are so blatantly against anything that legitimizes elections.
Thats because they know that they'll win so many fewer races if only legimate voters vote.
oh... ick...
"Sheesh...if the states keep this crap up the illegals will not be as important anymore."
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