Ninth District Rep. Morgan Griffith toured the Sovah-Martinsville campus, and discussed other issues on July 15, and on July 16, the Martinsville Henry County Democratic Committee hosted U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine at The Ground Floor in Martinsville.
Kaine
Kaine discussed Pres. Joe Biden’s second presidential bid and several other topics – including rural health care and the recent assassination attempt on former Pres. Donald Trump. An incumbent, Kaine is seeking reelection in November. He is being challenged by Hung Cao, who won the Republican nomination.
When voicing his support for Biden’s reelection bid, Kaine, D-Richmond, said, “If Joe Biden says look, I’m putting the country first, and I’ve got this. Then, we’re going to make sure Joe and Kamala (Harris – his running mate) not only win Virginia but win this race.”
Kaine said that Biden would “level with us” if there comes a time when the current president does not feel that he’s fit to do the job. “You don’t need to worry about him doing the patriotic thing and putting the country first. As long as he’s in this race, we’re with him. If he decides he can’t do it, he’ll tell us, and then we will go a different direction.”
Biden used social media over the weekend to announce that he would not seek reelection. In a separate post on X (formerly Twitter), Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the top of the ticket.
While in Martinsville, Kaine also discussed the July 13 attempted assassination of former Pres. Donald Trump.
The incident, he said, “just brought up a lot of bad memories. I grew up in the age of JFK being assassinated, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy, and it just reminded me of that chaos. I’m so grateful that President Trump wasn’t badly injured.”
Like many, Kaine called for an investigation to determine the cause of the security lapses at the rally in Butler, Pa.
Additionally, “we just have to try to better as a society, so these shocking instances of gun violence aren’t just happening again, and again, and again.”
He said that the economy is one of the biggest issues on the minds of potential voters, and indicated there is good news for the economy in Virginia.
“Unemployment rates are at historic lows, inflation rates are down, 401(k)s are up, manufacturing jobs are up,” Kaine said, and indicated that while there’s no quick fix for the economy, policies helping with student loan forgiveness, prescription drug costs, and childcare costs can help ease the burden on Americans.
“That’s a way to really address voters’ concerns,” he said.
Health care in rural Virginia is another area of concern, Kaine said, noting “it would be great if we could do more to attract health care providers to rural areas.”
He said that the Care Act was used to expand coverage in rural Virginia, and “what we’ve done on the prescription drug side has also helped people, seniors.”
When addressing the border crisis, Kaine said “border crossings are dramatically down in the last few months. They would have been down more if Republicans had joined with the bi-partisan plan that we negotiated in February. They decided to bail and not support the plan.”
Griffith
An incumbent seeking reelection in November, Griffith, R-Salem, is being challenged by Karen Baker, a democrat from Floyd.
Griffith toured Sovah because “I sit on the committee with policy jurisdiction,” he said of the health sub-committee of energy and commerce. The committee has jurisdiction over the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Center for Medicaid & Medicare (CMS), Health and Human Services (HHS).
Additionally, Griffith said, and added that he felt that it was important to visit hospitals, particularly those in rural areas because rural health is a challenge. Henry and Patrick counties as well as the City of Martinsville are considered rural areas.
An incentive program to attract health workers to rural areas has been discussed, but Griffith said he doesn’t expect movement within the next year.
With an incentive, “you pay people to come into areas that are underserved. I’m a proponent of that. I would support that. You’ve got to find the votes” to pass it, Griffith said, and suggested the formation of a coalition from the underserved communities to voice the needs as well as gain ground and attract attention.
“Right now, I don’t think we have the votes to vote in that (incentive) bill,” Griffith said
Patrick County’s Pioneer Community Hospital closed in 2017 after its owners filed for bankruptcy in 2016, Griffith said, adding the hospital property was later sold to Foresight Health.
Griffith, who had a hand in getting the hospital in Lee County reopened, is “ready to do it” in Patrick County, he said. However, neither he, Kaine nor Sen. Mark Warner were contacted.
Although he has heard “some interest,” Griffith said that currently, local government doesn’t have control of the building.
In voicing his support for Trump, Griffith said “the internet and social media have people believing that if you’re not with me, you’re evil. I am a big believer that, while I think my Democratic colleagues are misguided – and while there’s always a few evil people – 99 percent of the people are pretty good people just trying to do what’s right.”
The country has been strained recently by inflation, an issue that Griffith said is the number one issue among his constituents. Protecting the border is also a major point of concern at the moment, Griffith said.
“The border is a mess. It didn’t have to be a mess,” Griffith said, adding that in previous administrations, including democratically controlled ones, “the border wasn’t this bad. So, what’s the difference? The implementation of policy at the federal level by the president.”
There will be some ongoing issues at the border, even with better policies in place, because “you can’t seal it off completely,” Griffith said. “I’m a big believer in building the fence, but you can’t seal it off completely.”
