Woman's perfect response to congressman's ignorant health care question lights up Reddit
U.S. Rep. Rod Blum, R-Iowa, asked the worst hypothetical question about women's health care at a town hall in Iowa last week, but he got the best response for the ignorant statement -- and it's going viral.
Blum asked at a Dubuque, Iowa, town hall, "Why should a 62-year-old man have to pay for maternity care?" If you didn't know, Blum just turned 62 last month and identifies as a man.
Barbara Rank, one of his constituents in the audience, had some thoughts stemming from this question and let her local newspaper know. In the Telegraph Herald on Friday she wrote, "I ask, why should I pay for a bridge I don’t cross, a sidewalk I don’t walk on, a library book I don’t read?"
She went on, "Why should I pay for a flower I won’t smell, a park I don’t visit, or art I can’t appreciate? Why should I pay the salaries of politicians I didn’t vote for, a tax cut that doesn’t affect me, or a loophole I can’t take advantage of? It’s called democracy, a civil society, the greater good. That’s what we pay for."
The response was posted on Reddit over the weekend with the headline, "This is democracy manifest." It's generated thousands of comments and was up-voted more than 100,000 times.
Some hailed Rank as a "hero" and many thanked her for the response.
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The Washington Post checked in with Rank, 63, who only learned what Reddit was just a few days ago. She also still uses AOL email and doesn't even have a Facebook. “It makes me laugh,” Rank told the Washington Post. “It's such a silly little piece.”
Not silly at all Barbara -- more like simple and powerful.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
