“Hello, this is Congresswoman Judy Biggert. I’m calling to warn you about Medicare…”
How lucky am I? My Congresswoman, Judy Biggert was taking the time to call me personally about the dangers of Medicare. She called poor-little-old-me to ask if I wanted to join in on a conference call about health care reform.
She is so concerned. I was so honored.
But I was also surprised because she, as a Republican, and as a huge recipient of health care industry lobbying funds, has always voted against health care reform. She voted against every single version of health care legislation prior to this and every version of any legislation that is currently being offered…that I am aware of…in the House of Representatives. She was part of the Neoconservative Republicans, including Tobacco John Boehner who said that they wanted to destroy the President’s agenda and that killing health care reform would be his “Waterloo.”
Doesn’t have a really bi-partisan ring to it, does it?
I’ve heard Judy Biggert speak and read what she has written. I’m pretty sure that Judy Biggert couldn’t identify the date of Waterloo or who won if you gave her a 100-year margin of error.
She voted against SCHIPS, twice. That was the program to help parents of poor working-class families buy at least some minimal health care insurance for their children. It seemed a little callous to vote against a small amount of money to help poor families buy minimal premiums so that they could take their sick children to a doctor rather than the emergency room. Or take them to a doctor occasionally before they get sick.
She did, as I recall, vote for the Medicare Part D legislation, that gave $400 billion to the prescription drug industry to buy pills at top dollar for senior citizens. It helped seniors a little, except that between the time it was passed and the time it went into effect in 2003, a matter of only months, prescription drug prices went up an average of 26%. So much for the Part D 25% discount.
But I’ve noticed Judy always has a perfectly rational explanation for things, things like, say, voting to bomb innocent Iraqi children or killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. But we have taken care of that. Someone said that we now see to it that they have better health care than we do. But then they are not $12 trillion in debt after 8 years of George W. Bush and more years than that for Neoconservative Republican Congresswoman Judy Biggert.
Well, anyway, I couldn’t make the conference call. I knew that I would be busy recycling old aluminum cans that day…well, just about any day…to pay my medical bills.
She wanted me to know, she said, about the dangers to Medicare of passing health reform legislation. I was touched that she would call. Or she is touched? I had to find out. [Read more →]
















