Edwards Statement On Rising Health Care Costs

Thursday, January 8, 2004
Edwards Statement On Rising Health Care Costs

Senator John Edwards (D-NC) released the following statement today in response to a report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that health care costs grew faster than the economy for the fourth year in a row:

"This report confirms what working Americans across the country already know: health care in America costs too much.

"Yet what has President Bush done to help? He signed a Medicare care bill filled with giveaways to big drug companies and HMOs. He continued to oppose reimportation and sat idly by while his friends in the pharmaceutical industry colluded to keep Canadian pharmacists from supplying Americans with affordable drugs.

"When I'm president, I will stand up to the drug companies and HMOs and put the American people first. I will clamp down on skyrocketing drug costs by allowing reimportation of drugs from other countries and stopping misleading drug advertisements. I'll add 100,000 nurses into the system to bring down costs and reduce medical errors, and we'll have a real Patients' Bill of Rights, like the one Senators Kennedy, McCain and I fought for on the Senate floor."