Whitehouse speaks on health care to St. Joseph Vets

U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) hosted a dinner on Sunday night at St. Joseph’s Veterans Association to discuss the economy and a new economic stimulus plan with local residents.

Woonsocket resident, Travis Savoie, commenced the evening and offered introductions. Savoie and his grandmother had been the topic of Whitehouse’s recent speech on the Senate floor in January.

“My great-grandmother is still climbing three flights of stairs here in city of Woonsocket. She’s lived in the same place for over fifty years and she fell into this doughnut hole where she had to come to me and swallow her pride as she was faced with some tough choices and tough decisions,” Savoie explained.

“With rising energy costs, does she pay for her heat or her electricity? Does she go without food or does she go without the prescription drugs that she needs to take on a daily basis?”

Savoie explained his grandmother’s problems with the Medicare Part-D insurance program, which is one of Whitehouse’s primary concerns, and offered his gratitude to Whitehouse for striving to make changes to the system.

With numerous political supporters present including Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), Whitehouse took the opportunity to share his concerns and accept questions from guests regarding issues such as healthcare, education, Social Security and assistance for seniors and working-class families.

“I was on the Senate floor just the other day, banging away at the prescription drug problem and once again I used Travis’ story because it means the world to people when you take something that is complex or some sort of policy prescription and you can bring it down to a story that people can remember and that they can feel in their hearts,” said Whitehouse.

Whitehouse stressed the importance of the United States economy being in severe need of more Democratic representatives that would focus on correcting the issues that are financially affecting working-class families, seniors, and Veterans.

“We’re going to need to win some more seats in ’08, we’re going to need a Democratic President and there are things that will change that will get the troops home from Iraq, get the Part-D thing fixed and in the meantime we’ve been able to raise a little hell and do things like increase Pell grants, increase minimum wage and do pretty much every funding thing that we could for Veterans’,” Whitehouse said.

 Whitehouse explained his stand on Social Security benefits and the problem with the United States economy accruing trillions of dollars worth of debt as well the immigration issues that are causing rapid increases in healthcare costs.

“I think we can make Social Security sound for a very long time by doing something simple,” said Whitehouse. “There’s a cap on the amount of wages that are subject to Social Security benefits. It is about $90,000. Lift it. Lift the cap right off and let everybody pay an even share.”

Fundamentally, Whitehouse conveyed that his collective goal is to decrease the amount of money spent by Congress on the war in Iraq, impede the accumulation of debts to other countries and ultimately reform the healthcare and Social Security systems to increase benefits for citizens.

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