Bean listens to her constituents

Joe Walsh is running against Melissa Bean in the 8th Congressional District, and he is trying to make a major issue of her vote for The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He claims she is trying to dodge this issue.

That is nonsense. I wrote to our representative to express my opinion on this bill. The reply I received explained her vote quite explicitly. She wrote about what the people in her district had to say concerning the health care issue. She told one story of the parents of a 14-year-old boy. They were considering bankruptcy because their poor sick child had met his lifetime maximum and was no longer insurable.

Melissa Bean listened to the people in her district and voted accordingly. Who has Joe Walsh been listening to? The powerful insurance lobbies? The often inaccurate and irrational rants of the extreme right? What part of the Patient Protection Act is he against? Is he against the part where insurance companies can no longer refuse to insure children because they are sick? Is he against the part where parents will be able to keep their children on their plan until they are 26? Is he against the part where an insurance company can no longer cut off insurance to a sick child because the child has cost them too much?

Joe Walsh tells us he is going to be his own man. I find that very frightening. In her three terms as a representative of the 8th District of Illinois, Melissa Bean has shown that she listens carefully to the people in her district and then votes accordingly. What will Joe Walsh be listening to the voices in his head?

Michael Precin

Palatine