Video: Sen. Mark Warner speaks on Medicaid expansion

 

Sen. Mark Warner today spoke to a crowd of more than 400 at the opening of his campaign headquarters in Alexandria. The packed house included Democrats, independents and Republicans – a snapshot of the senator’s broad support across the Commonwealth.

Sen. Warner spoke about the state of the race and his long record of working across party lines to find commonsense solutions. In addition, he spoke about the need for the Virginia General Assembly to pass Medicaid expansion.

 

Transcript

“Now, clearly, in Virginia we need to do this in our own way. This is a chance for us to reform and make the Medicaid program Virginia-centric and a better model. And I know these folks will work with folks on both sides of the aisle to get that right. But this is not only the morally right thing to do, and not only is this the economically right thing to do in terms of our tax dollars going to other states, but the honest to goodness thing is that even if these folks don’t get coverage, they still show up in the emergency room and the cost is passed on and we pay for it as well- all of us with private health insurance. And increasingly you’re going to see wide swathes of Virginia where there are more rural hospitals literally going out of business because they don’t have the kind of resources that are in the law to meet the focused needs across the Commonwealth.”