by Katy Knapp
Daily Lobo
Women swing voters from New Mexico had a chance to sit down and ask vice presidential nominee John Edwards' wife Elizabeth questions Friday at a private residence in Albuquerque.
Gov. Bill Richardson introduced Edwards to the 27 invited women. Five women from all class ranges served on a panel and fielded questions about better access to health care, taxes and education.
Richardson praised Edwards as a distinguished lawyer and advocate of children's rights as well as a "fighter for women."
Edwards said 22 million women didn't vote in the last election because they lacked information.
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"I have a self-interest to inform people," she said.
Edwards opened the discussion by addressing health-care reform.
"We have the best health care in the entire world," she said. "But it's not available to all of us, and that's the situation we have to remedy."
Edwards said John Kerry wants to make sure all American children are covered by health insurance, and one way of doing that is adding options people already have to force competition.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign also plans to reduce insurance costs by allowing the federal government to cover the most catastrophic cases, such as serious injuries and disease. By doing this, Edwards said health care premiums would be reduced because insurance companies won't have that risk anymore.
"Health care is a matter of right, not a matter of privilege," she said.
Edwards said the No Child Left Behind Act is a major problem for school systems in America.
"It's underfunded by $25 billion and the state picks up the slack," she said.
That money could be better used to pay teachers and provide smaller classrooms, Edwards said.
Gabriella Duran, an educator, expressed her concerns regarding America's poor economy. She said she senses fear in high school seniors about the awaiting job market and wanted to know what would be done to create more jobs.
"They see their parents and teachers making non-livable wages," she said. "They have no hope in the future."
Edwards said if Kerry is elected president, they will be able to "look forward to a more prosperous country."
She said America needs more aggressive job policies.
"We need actual policies to create jobs," she said. "Not hope other policies will cover it."
She said the provision in the tax code to give big businesses tax credit for moving overseas needs to be eliminated.
"Our president needs to fight for Main Street," she said. "We need a tax advantage for staying in the country."
Edwards also discussed a program proposed by the Kerry-Edwards campaign called "Youth Build," where young people can get their high school diploma or GED and work in the construction industry to learn a skill and gain work ethic. Another option, she said, is a program in which a high school graduate does two years of community service to receive four years paid tuition to a state university.
Maria Romero, a registered nurse, asked Edwards what is being done about the nursing shortage in America.
Edwards said mandatory overtime, which would be eliminated under her husband's policy, is part of the problem. The real problem is finding more nurse educators and Kerry has initiatives to create better recruitment programs, she said.
