My Choice for Political Hero of the Year -- Rep. Anh Cao (R La)

Representative Anh Cao (Rep., Louisiana)

Having a first-generation daughter from Viet Nam isn't my only incentive for this posting, but Anh Cao represents what America is all about. Let me include a short quotation from one of my favorite online newspapers:

The single House Republican who voted for the Democrats' health-care legislation is a first-term congressman from a strongly Democratic--and very poor--district comprising most of New Orleans. Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao's vote is significant, not because it was politically motivated--and it was--but because it highlights the disparity between lower and middle-class people throughout the country and many of their representatives in Washington, D.C.

Among the 535 elected representatives deciding the future shape of the American health care system, some 44% are millionaires, according to a new study by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan research group that tracks the effect of money in U.S. politics and policy. Rep. Cao is not among them. Neither are his constituents.

"I listened to the countless stories of Orleans and Jefferson Parish citizens whose health-care costs are exploding -- if they are able to obtain health care at all," Cao, the first Vietnamese-American to be elected to Congress, said in a statement after the legislation passed the House with a 220-215 vote.

Right here in Grays Harbor County (15.3% unemployed) we have serious needs for primary health care, for mental health care, and for expanded health care for seniors and children. My recent visits to the local hospital--both for my own surgery and my brothers' problems exposed me to the most obvious needs that end up in the ER--most brought there by EMS.

In the end, the bills went out--most never paid--and the needs for health care insurance for the bottom rung of our economic ladder was never more obvious.

Now will at least one Republican in the Senate (I don't count on Joe Lieberman of the "Vote for Joe" Party in Connecticut) vote to kill any possible filibuster as the bill goes forward? With the "no abortion" amendment attached yesterday, even a Christian or two among the "Blue Dogs" should vote their deep down conscious and answer that question we hear so often, "What would Jesus do?"