Remarks of Transition Health Policy Team Leader Tom Daschle

Colorado Health Summit – hosted by Senator Ken Salazar

Friday, December 5, 2008

Denver, Colorado

Thank you very much, Ken, for that wonderful introduction and thank you all for your warm reception.  It is such a pleasure to be here.  In politics you get introduced in so many wonderful ways and sometimes hyperbolic.  I remember that time when I was introduced as a model United States Senator, and a model South Dakotan, and a model leader and a model person overall, my wife Linda was with me and later showed me the word model as its defined in the dictionary as a small replica of the real thing.  Ken chose not to use that word and I appreciate it very much.  I don’t know about you, but I get moved every time I hear stories like we’ve just seen this morning.  Compelling personal stories.  You can read statistics until your eyes glaze over and I’ll be throwing out statistics in my remarks this morning.  But what really matters is that, what really matters is the impact that those numbers have on real people.  And I’m sure that all of us as diverse as we may be in this room this morning have our own stories, either family stories, stories relating to friends, maybe personal, but we can all relate to stories like that.  And so we’re gathered here because I would like to believe that a few years from now we won’t have to hear stories like that from people.  A few years from now I would like to hear stories that are much more optimistic and much more persuasive that we can do a better job as Americans in providing basic healthcare for every single American regardless of circumstance.