Hypocrisy in Walsh’s health care vote

Our newly elected congressman from the 8th District, Joe Walsh, said that he was “proud” to have cast one of his first votes to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act. This vote doesn’t make any sense if you really look at it from Joe’s perspective.

Before the election, Congressman Walsh said that he would not take advantage of the Cadillac health care coverage available to lawmakers, and I commend him for keeping that campaign promise. Later, he revealed that his wife has a pre-existing condition. After the election he purchased coverage for his family through a private health care insurance company.

Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in this? The new health care reform law enabled him to buy insurance for his wife. Without it, the insurance company could have denied her because of her pre-existing condition. Millions were denied coverage because they had pre-existing conditions such as hay fever and pregnancy, believe it or not, not to mention cancer and other serious illnesses. Without the law that he voted to repeal he would never have been able to make that campaign promise in the first place, and he knew it.

Why would he vote against his own best interest? Probably because he knew that it was a meaningless vote (and a waste of Congress’ time and taxpayers’ money) and would never be signed by the president.

Jay Dahl

Rolling Meadows