Phillips Slams Stewart... (92nd House Dist)

I've never much liked Jimmy "Fast Fingers" Stewart, so I was happy to come across this tidbit about a recent debate in Athens...

Debbie Phillips, who is running against Stewart for the 92nd Ohio House seat, wasted no time in taking Stewart to task for hanging his constituants out to dry.

"Some people think that people choose not to be insured or have planned poorly," said Ohio House candidate Phillips. One Morgan County resident she's spoken with, however, has an entirely different situation that she believes is emblematic. "The company (he worked for) left the country," reported Phillips. "They are not paying insurance."

Meigs County trails other parts of Ohio in terms of its number of doctors, she added. Ohio State University data show one doctor for every 3,852 Meigs residents - compared with one doctor for every 852 state residents as a whole.

Incumbent state Rep. Stewart, asserted Phillips, has voted for budgets that do little to address these problems.

Stewart's answer? That SE Ohioans lack decent medical care because they over use the emergency room and smoke too much. I don't think I've ever heard a worse answer; you're telling me that our state's healthcare crisis is due to the fact that SE Ohioans smoke too much? Hysterical.

Phillips wasted no time in blasting back.

Asked why, if smoking cessation is key, he accepted a campaign donation from the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., Stewart responded that he has received money from a variety of sources, which does not affect how he votes in the legislature...

Of course, the article also gets to the heart of the matter:

Public campaign-finance data show that Stewart has accepted thousands of dollars from major players in the health-care industry, including political action committees for national pharmaceutical companies Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck and Pfizer.

So long as Reps like Stewart run our state and our nation, American consumers will continue to suffer, whether they light up or not.