Weldon a physician made headlines recently for voting one more time against the Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), thus helping to prevent the expansion of this program to cover some of the 9 million uninsured children in our country. Dr. Stephen Blythe, a family physician in the congressman's district, took the opportunity to display the differences the two share in ideology.
Dr. Blythe is a Democrat, and favors an active role of the government in creating a system through which no American goes without access to health care. "There are 18,000 Americans dying each year directly due to a lack of health insurance," says Dr. Blythe. "That's six 9/11's per year - where is our outrage at that? Whether or not you are worried about 'government healthcare' - this issue is about 9 million children and 38 million adults without access to health care. That should be a national shame for our country."
Weldon has voted to deny negotiations between the Medicare Program and the drug companies to reduce program costs, and has voted to prevent the importation of affordable medications from Canada, notes Blythe. "While Weldon worries about 'expanding government healthcare,' my patients with diabetes who cannot afford their medications or my patient who will die without a transplant - but who has no insurance to cover it - would not be afraid of government healthcare."
Blythe adds: "The only ones afraid of government healthcare, it seems, are well-insured Republicans who have done absolutely nothing to help Americans get the care they need."
When discussing his SCHIP decision Weldon said, "A lot of the people it's intended to help will remain oblivious the program even exists."
He went on to say, "These are the real working poor that it was intended to help. And they're not going to know about it. I don't want to expand another middle-class entitlement."
Weldon until recently was in a competitive race with Democrat Paul Rancatore. However Rancatore withdrew from the race earlier this month after deciding to spend more time with his mother, who is battling cancer.
It will be a challenge for Blythe to defeat Weldon in this majority Republican District, but Dr. Blythe wants everyone in this part of Florida to know that he wants to be "the new doctor in the house."
