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Thursday, July 20, 2006
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Independence Party gubernatorial team visits city Hutchinson cites four key issues Associate Editor Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson said Wednesday his party's pitch revolves around four key issues: health care, transportation, education and the environment.
Of these main issues, he said, the rising cost of health care poses the biggest threat to the state's future because it could place a stranglehold on Minnesota's ability to function.
"If we don't solve this we won't have the money to do anything else," Hutchinson said shortly before attending a noon Sertoma Club meeting in Baxter.
Hutchinson and the Independence Party's lieutenant governor candidate, Dr. Maureen Reed, brought their campaign to the Brainerd area Wednesday and described escalating health care costs as a juggernaut-size problem. Hutchinson, a Minneapolis public policy consultant, said his goal is world-class health care at "world competitive" prices.
Currently, he said health care in the U.S. costs 50 percent more in than it does in other countries and 30 percent of health care spending is a waste - procedures that are done twice, for example.
Reed, a Stillwater physician and a former health company executive, said the state needs a health care solution that's sound financially and politically practical. The health care problem, she said, demands comprehensive and aggressive reform.
Hutchinson described education as the state's "economic engine" and said that if Minnesota plans to compete globally it no longer can tolerate a situation where half of the kindergarten students show up without being ready for school. He also complained that one-third of high school graduates have to take remedial courses in college, which he described as ridiculous and wasteful.
While he was pleased the Legislature recently took action to curb the presence of mercury in Minnesota's lakes, streams and rivers, much more needed to be done to reduce pollution.
"Water in the state is in bad shape and getting worse," Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson favors raising the gas tax to fix state highways.
"The roads are literally falling apart," he said.
Diverting attention from the main issues of health care, transportation, education and the environment are what Hutchinson terms the five Gs: guns, gays, God, gambling and gynecology.
"They're not central to the future prosperity of the state," Hutchinson said. "We don't make progress on these things or anything else."
Hutchinson said he would seek common ground on these divisive issues. He said virtually everyone favors reducing the number of abortions and he would work to accomplish that through education, family planning and abstinence programs.
The two candidates estimate they've traveled about 10,000 miles in outstate Minnesota and have received a "great response." They sense considerable disaffection for the major political parties.
MIKE O'ROURKE can be reached at mike.orourke@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5860.
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