Candidate answers questions, offers prayer

 

By JENNIFER COLTON/Index-Journal staff writer

Published: Saturday, December 1, 2007 12:33 AM EST

2008 presidential candidate Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., stopped in Greenwood on Friday to answer questions from residents and pray for U.S. troops, answering to hails of “our next president.”

“You notice she didn’t call for Romney when she said that,” Hunter said after one resident asked to take a photo with the next president.

Hunter embarked on a tour through the historic corridor this week, visiting Pickens, Anderson, Abbeville, McCormick, Greenwood, Edgefield and North Augusta on Thursday and Friday.

In Greenwood, Hunter first stopped at the Greenwood County Courthouse for a “Call to Prayer” for U.S. troops at home and overseas — after getting turned around at Erskine College and touring Laurens County in an attempt to find better directions to Greenwood.

“I don’t know where we’ve been, but we stopped a lot of places and shook a lot of hands,” Hunter said of the direction-search. “We walked into one restaurant, and one guy looked up and said, �That looks like Duncan Hunter.’ I walked over and introduced myself.”

Ellie Litts organized the call to prayer and Hunter’s trip to Greenwood.

“The reason we came here is because in 1980, Ronald Reagan came here and stood on these steps,” Litts said of the courthouse. “But the primary reason we’re here is to pray and support the troops. What’s going to give us freedom is faith.”

Outside of the prayer session, Hunter spent the majority of his time at the courthouse responding to questions about health care.

“The first thing we should do is really simple,” he said. “We should allow you to buy insurance across state lines if you want to. The same policy that costs $70 a month in California costs $300 a month in New Jersey. If you could buy over state lines, you could get much better deals. We live in a time where you can go online and buy almost anything — except insurance. If you could open that up, it would bring down the cost of health care.”

Hunter also said some families should only need “catastrophic” health insurance with the return of the “family doctor.”

“Why should you have to have an insurance company for a $50 doctor visit any more than for $70 worth of groceries?” Hunter asked. “A doctor wants a simple practice with patients, not paperwork. I don’t think everyone needs insurance. This country has been intimidated by those people who are pressing to socialize our country. How many people do you know who have had their homes taken by the hospital?”

Incentives for family doctors, such as removing taxes for doctors who offer office calls for less than $40, would help that system, he said.

Hunter also said he would work on cutting overhead and paperwork costs and change policies on how long patients should stay in hospitals. For an example, Hunter said patients diagnosed with asthma are taken to the emergency room and then spend a week in the hospital for observation.

“If you took away that protocol where you could send people home earlier, across the country, you’d save billions of dollars,” he said. “Unless Medicare changes, none of the hospitals are going to change.”

Other topics discussed in the candidate’s Greenwood venture were Iran and the recent Republican debate.

“I thought it was a pretty good debate, and I got a chance to talk about the border fence I built in San Diego, so it was fun,” Hunter said, adding he is still trying to make the Bush administration act on legislation to continue the fence on the Mexican border for 854 miles.

“We’re pressing on them to get that done. You have to have a border,” he said.

As a final question, residents asked how they could help the campaign.

“The way to help me win is to make sure the information gets out,” Hunter said. “My problem is name recognition. When we’re able to focus on an audience, we do very well. Right now we’re going to do as much as we can getting that name out.”