Florida’s Health Care Takes Center Stage as Gov. Crist Calls for Action

Sept. 18, 2008 - PRLog -- At a premier health care conference today in Orlando, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist called the state’s high rate of uninsured worrisome, but said Florida’s bipartisan solutions could be a role model for the nation.

During remarks at America’s Health Care at Risk: Finding a Cure, Crist said approximately 3.8 million Floridians have no health care coverage.  “When I heard those numbers and statistics, it bothered my conscience and it bothered my heart,” Crist said. “What we needed to do was change things and make a difference.”

He cited state initiatives, including “Cover Florida,” a plan to provide care to uninsured Floridians, as a role model for the nation for bipartisan solutions.

“We did it by working together. We didn’t care who got the credit – we just wanted to be sure who got the benefit,” he said.

The governor announced at the conference that nine private health care insurance providers are in the bidding to offer Cover Florida policies to the state’s uninsured.

“The success we have been able to achieve is because we do work together – Republicans, Democrats and Independents,” Crist told the 230 elected officials, health industry representatives and community leaders from throughout the state and nation at America’s Health Care at Risk who came together to discuss common ground for reforming health care.
Solutions to help Florida’s uninsured — along with the 44 million other uninsured Americans across the nation — were discussed by CEOs, health-care providers, labor leaders, policy analysts and elected officials during the Orlando conference.

Along with Crist, the diverse lineup included Ivan G. Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon, who chairs the Business Roundtable Consumer Health initiative; John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers; William Novelli, CEO of AARP; and Dr. James R. Bean, president of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.

The conference opened Wednesday with a discussion on presidential politics and health care, featuring political consultant James Carville and Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to President Bush. The two-day event at the Hyatt Regency at Orlando International Airport was organized by the White House Writers Group, a communications firm formed by former Reagan and Bush speechwriters, along with West Wing Writers, a communications firm formed by former Clinton presidential writers.

“A lot of people who usually talk at each other talked to each about so many important issues – about making sure all Americans have access to the health care they need and about the necessity of lowering costs while maintaining quality” said Clark S. Judge, managing director of the White House Writers Group.

“From the governor to the business leaders and doctors, we have lots of ideas to take back to Washington to jump start health-care reform,” said Paul Orzulak, founding partner of the West Wing Writers. “Mostly, we agreed that this is too important to be a partisan issue.”

For more news updates from the conference: www.healthcareatrisk.org.

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