edwards shaking hands before speaking in Whitesburg, Kentucky
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards greeted a crowd in Whitesburg, KY, July 18
Photos: Shawn Poynter
Presidential candidate John Edwards traveled to Wise, Virginia, and several towns in Eastern Kentucky, Wednesday, July 18, the third day of his “poverty tour” that began in New Orleans.
woman and two children in Whitesburg at Edwards speech

Wendy Poe with children Lauren and Kristen
listened to John Edwards in Prestonsburg, KY

At Appalshop, a media and culture center in Whitesburg, KY, Edwards spoke with students and their families at the studios of WMMT Radio. Young people described the problems that the pain-killing drug OxyContin had brought to their community and questioned Edwards about how he would change the nation’s health care delivery system. One young woman told the presidential candidate that if she had a baby or were a drug addict, she’d be able to receive medical attention, but, “I’m a college student and I don’t have any money to go see the doctor.”

Edwards told the Letcher County gathering, “It just shouldn’t be in the United States of America that we have people like you, that can’t go see the doctor when they need to…. There’s just one answer for this, and that’s a true universal health care system.”

Listen to Edwards’s concluding remarks here.

 

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