Homepage Heard on College Hill Funding Our Public Officials Brown Policy Reports Brown Polls Financial Disclosure Lectures RI Factbook PS111 Contact Us Site Search Help Support this Site		Patrick Kennedy Needles Newt Gingrich over RI Visit (posted June 22, 2004) Congressman Patrick Kennedy needled his luncheon keynote speaker, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, at a conference "Transforming Health Care Delivery for the 21st Century" jointly organized by Brown University and Kennedy's congressional office. In introducing his former political adversary, Kennedy laughed that following a joint press conference attended by Gingrich and his brother Ted Kennedy Jr., photographers took pictures of Gingrich with a Kennedy on each side. Kennedy joked that if Gingrich didn't do the right thing, he would "release the photo to the Republican party." For his part, Gingrich joined in the banter. Following Kennedy's introduction, Gingrich laughed that Kennedy might have some explaining to do to current Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi over why he had invited Gingrich to his health care conference It turns out the one issue on which Kennedy and Gingrich agree is the importance of health care information technology. Gingrich has been traveling the country trying to sell the idea of how technology can improve medical service while also cutting costs. Gingrich's speech provided lots of examples of how technology is transforming health care. The largely Democratic audience gave him an enthusiastic round of applause at the end of his speech. The speech was attended by Lt. Governor Charles Fogarty, former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse, and practitioners in the health care area.