Irishman stumps for Obama on health care reform

Mayo man says pay should not be a barrier to good quality health care

Irish man Vince Keane from Ballyhaunis County Mayo is helping U.S. President Barack Obama to try and overhaul the health care system in the U.S.

On Wednesday, September 9, when President Obama gave the most important speech of his early presidency, Keane sat in the gallery with the first lady, Jill Biden and Victoria Kennedy, wife of the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

Keane, 63, is president and CEO of Unity Health Care, a community health care center that serves 81,000 people in Washington D.C., people who would otherwise go without health care. Unity is part of about 1,000 centers nationwide that provide care for the uninsured and others who lack health care in the commercial market.

In June, Keane was introduced to Michelle Obama when she visited the Unity Health Care facility in the Upper Cardozo area of Washington to announce the release of $851 million in grants to address immediate and pressing health care center facility needs. These grants will provide immediate access to health care for millions of Americans.

Senator Kennedy made the first federal appropriation for these health care facilities in 1965, and they were part of President Johnson's war on poverty. The Obama administration expects to expand these centers as part of a health care reform bill to serve the many millions of uninsured.

“Mrs. Obama came to visit us in January and again in June to see some of the work we were doing,” Keane tells the Irish Voice on Monday.

“She met with some of our clients, our doctors, held a press conference, and a few weeks later I got invited by the first lady to attend the president’s health care address last week.

“What an honor it really was to be there sitting in the same box as the first lady, Mrs. Biden and Vicki Kennedy.”

Keane, who visits Ireland nearly every year, emigrated to the U.S. from Mayo 40 years ago and spent the first 20 years as a priest in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia.

“I left the priesthood in 1987 and shortly after began working with what was then known as Healthcare for the Homeless,” said Keane.

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Nster.com