Arizona lawmaker participates in AARP telephone town hall
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords today called health insurance reform the nation’s most important domestic challenge.
Speaking a day after President Obama’s address on health insurance reform to a rare joint session of Congress, the Arizona lawmaker outlined her views on the issue during a telephone town hall organized by AARP.
“Reforming our nation’s broken health insurance system is probably the most important domestic challenge – definitely in my lifetime and in a generation,” Giffords said. “We are spending too much, receiving too little and are left worrying that the insurance we have is just not enough.”
Giffords was invited to participate in the telephone town hall by David Mitchell, the AARP’s state director for Arizona. She answered questions from Arizona AARP members for about an hour. An estimated 60,000 people in the congresswoman’s Southeastern Arizona district were invited to join the call.
The AARP board of directors recently called on members of Congress to support health insurance reform legislation that will improve access to health care for seniors, lowers costs and closes the Medicare Part D coverage gap. Giffords agrees with these objectives and told call participants that “we cannot live with the status quo.”
“Arizonans need reform that puts the power back in the hands of patients,” the congresswoman said.
Giffords attended Wednesday’s joint session of Congress with Marty and Taylor Huffman, a Sierra Vista man and his daughter whose family was forced to the brink of bankruptcy because of a health crisis. The congresswoman invited the Huffmans to attend after learning about the catastrophic illness of Judy Huffman, Marty’s 48-year old wife.
Marty Huffman shared his family’s plight with the 1,300 people who attended Gifford’s Health Insurance Town Hall in Sierra Vista on Aug. 31.
“I was so touched by Marty’s story that I invited him and his daughter Taylor to join me to attend the historic joint session of Congress,” Giffords said. “He and his family represent the human face of the health insurance crisis in our nation. They know the status quo is unacceptable. They know that our health insurance system is not working.”