Washington, D.C., July 12, 2006 – In the spring of 2005, former Senator John Breaux unveiled his Ceasefire on Health Care campaign, an effort he undertook to find “common ground” for meaningful, bipartisan change to the nation’s health care system. Since then, Senator Breaux has held forums and discussions all over America with leading Republican and Democrat policymakers seeking ways to reform the system. Today he announced the launch of a Ceasefire on Health Care podcast, designed to further spread the results of the program. The Ceasefire on Health Care campaign is sponsored by American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies (CCPS).

 

With the upcoming mid-term elections just a few months away, Senator Breaux hopes the podcast will be an effective public information source for understanding that bipartisan health care reform is possible and identifying specific areas in which common ground for health care reform exists. “Health care will be a pivotal issue in the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential elections,” said Senator Breaux. “We want the podcast to avoid the partisanship and rhetoric that normally surrounds this topic and provide concrete, incremental reform recommendations and findings that policymakers and the public can consider.”

 

The first episode in the podcast, which is available today for download at the campaign Web site at www.ceasefireonhealthcare.org and anticipated to be posted through Yahoo!, Google, Odeo, PodNova and iTunes, provides listeners with the background and goals of the Ceasefire on Health Care campaign. The podcast will be updated each Wednesday throughout the summer and fall until the elections in November, with each episode specifically focused on a different health care reform topic.

 

Some of the topics that will be addressed in upcoming podcast include the need for health care reform, the crisis of the uninsured, the implementation of the Medicare Modernization Act, health care information technology’s role in modernizing our nation’s medical records, Governor Mitt Romney’s new plan to cover the uninsured in Massachusetts and the challenges of addressing health care reform in the 109^th Congress.

 

The podcast will also feature comments from participants in previous Ceasefire bipartisan forums, including Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; former HHS Secretaries Tommy Thompson and Donna Shalala; former Senators Tom Daschle and Don Nickles; and Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR).

 

Professor James A. Thurber, director of CCPS said, “As a university-based research center focused on the study of Congress, we are pleased to be able to sponsor the Ceasefire on Health Care series and support this bipartisan discussion on health care.”

 

For more information, please visit www.ceasefireonhealthcare.org.

 

###