Second Merkley TV Spot: Jeff's Wife Mary - A Registered Nurse - Highlights Merkley's Commitment to Stand Up to Health Care Special Interests

PORTLAND - Today House Speaker Jeff Merkley's campaign for U.S. Senate released its second television ad. The 30-second spot entitled "Know" features Jeff's wife, Mary Sorteberg, a practicing nurse, highlighting Merkley's commitment to stand up to health care special interests.

View the new ad.

"Jeff is passionate about changing this country and fixing health care so everyday people get the care they need," says Mary Sorteberg, a registered nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center specializing in pre and post operative care for surgical patients. "He wants to take power away from drug and insurance lobbyists and give it back to patients like the ones I see. Jeff will get his health care ideas from families, patients and nurses like me."

Merkley will fix America's broken health care system by favoring patients and families over special interests. The pharmaceutical and health products industry and the insurance industry have spent more money lobbying Congress over the past decade than any other industries in America, totaling more than $2.3 billion.[1]

One of Merkley's first acts as Oregon's next U.S. Senator will be to sign on as a co-sponsor of Senator Ron Wyden's Healthy Americans Act, which will guarantee every American universal, affordable, comprehensive, portable, high-quality health coverage that is as good or better than Members of Congress have today.

More than 11,000 registered nurses from the Oregon Nurses Association have endorsed Merkley's campaign for U.S. Senate.

Jeff Merkley spent his early years in Roseburg, Oregon, a community where the children of loggers and mill workers learned the value of honest work, good neighbors, and strong families. Jeff earned scholarships and became the first in his family to go to college. He went on to serve as a national security analyst, first for the Pentagon and then for Congress. After returning to Oregon with his wife Mary, Merkley led Habitat for Humanity and worked with low-income families to rebuild neighborhoods and purchase their first home.

As Oregon's next U.S. Senator, Jeff Merkley will take on the special interests and fight hard for regular hardworking Oregonians. He will take on the big insurance and drug companies to make health care more affordable and accessible for all of us. He will end unfair trade deals that have cost Oregon 70,000 manufacturing jobs and will end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. And Merkley will end the war in Iraq, bring our sons and daughters home, and fulfill the commitment we have made to our veterans and men and women in uniform.

Today, Jeff Merkley lives in East Multnomah County with Mary, a professional nurse, and their two children, Jonathan age eleven and Brynne age ten.

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[1] Center for Responsive Politics, accessed 3/26/08.

Posted April 14, 2008
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