President George W. Bush came to Chattanooga in February to promote his proposed tax breaks for health coverage aimed at making heath insurance more affordable to working Americans. Congressman Wamp accompanied President Bush during his visit to the Scenic City, which was the first trip made by a president since George Herbert Walker Bush visited in the early 1990s.
Joined by Congressman Wamp and other elected officials, President Bush presented the President’s Volunteer Service Award to Debbie Chadwick who has given 10 years of voluntary service to the patients of the Life Care Center of Missionary Ridge by signing with the hearing-impaired and deaf residents and recruiting volunteers to help visually-impaired and blind residents read Braille. Following the award presentation, President Bush toured an interventional radiology suite at Erlanger’s Baroness Campus where he observed cutting-edge stroke treatment and a robotic surgical system used to perform minimally-invasive surgery.
At the Chattanooga Convention Center the President and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt met with Tennesseans in a roundtable discussion about health care. “We’ve got a problem with health care. It’s not affordable, and it’s not accessible to too many people,” President Bush said. He offered solutions to help Americans afford private health insurance, specifically asking for support of a proposal he made during the State of the Union to allow the cost of insurance to be tax deductible. “I firmly believe we can do a better job in helping people get private insurance than we’re doing today,” said President Bush.
