Delegates Speak: Health Care, Vetetans’ Assistance

Aug. 29, 2008, 9:00 a.m. EDT

Q. What serious issue in your state would you like the next president to address?

Wyoming on Health Care

Health care is number one still. We still have a lot of people who don’t have adequate health care in this nation. Someone has to do something…The cost and price of energy, although helping our state tremendously as far as giving us surpluses, but still causing a lot of heartache for the people of Wyoming. So those are the two issues: energy costs and health care.

(As president, Barack Obama) will push forward some kind of national health care… I think we are going to see some additional help with health care dollars and getting people covered.

–Wyoming delegate, State Sen. John Hastert, 50, of Green River, interviewed by Pamela M. Prah, Stateline.org.

Virginia on Veterans’ Assistance

I served one year in Vietnam and three years in the military and then went to school on the GI Bill after that. The veterans from the war in Iraq are coming home and have no place to go … I’m thinking about these GIs now, after 12 months, ready to come home and then (their tour) is extended for another six months. You don’t know how much pressure that is on a young GI. I was 19 in Vietnam and most of the vets in the volunteer Army are between 18 and 25 years old. They may say they love it ….but the reason they go in the first place is because they are looking for a better life for themselves. They are not going to war because they want to kill and maim someone else, and they don’t want to be killed or maimed themselves. When they get out of there, we don’t take care of them.

–Virginia delegate Willie L. Brown, 62, of Chesapeake, Army veteran, interviewed by Pamela M. Prah, Stateline.org.