Sen. Dick Durbin movingly described his sick child’s preexisting
condition as a reason to support Obamacare last week, but the Illinois
Democrat neglected to mention that his late daughter was easily covered
by existing insurance, and that he used taxpayer money to reward the
hospital that treated her.
Despite her preexisting condition, Christine Durbin, who suffered
from a lifelong heart condition and died at age 40 in 2008, was eligible
for coverage under existing laws in multiple states, including the
senator’s state and the state she ultimately settled in.
Durbin also neglected to mention that he sent his daughter to one of
the best children’s hospitals in the country, to which he earmarked
millions of dollars from 2002-2010.
“I’ve had a situation in my family — a child — who had serious
physical problems, who could not have qualified but for group health
insurance available to me as a member of Congress,” Durbin said in
response to a pointed question to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
“If I had gone on the open market to buy a policy I’m not sure I
could have bought one for my family to cover my child,” said Durbin, who
was first elected to Congress in 1982 when his Christine was fourteen.
In fact, Durbin wasn’t sure about buying a policy on the open market
because he never had to, having been a state employee from 1969 to 1982
and a federal employee from 1982 to now. His daughter, Christine, who
was born in 1968, never went without the cushy government benefits
offered to government workers and their families.
State law also addressed the problem of individuals in the open market
suffering from preexisting conditions. In 1987, Illinois passed the
Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan (CHIP, which covered any Illinoisan
who could not “obtain individual coverage from private insurance
companies because of medical conditions.”
Thirty-five other states have
similar programs, including Maryland, where Christine ultimately settled.
Durbin also sent his daughter to the very expensive Children’s
Memorial Hospital for care. Durbin was able to pay Children’s Memorial
Hospital back with U.S. taxpayers’ money, giving the hospital over
$650,000 in just one earmark in 2002.
“This new state of the art facility will enhance Children’s
Hospital’s reputation as one of America’s best pediatric hospitals,”
Durbin told the Chicago Tribune in 2012, at the opening of a new 23-story building.
Managed by the politically-connected Crown family, Children’s
Memorial Hospital is one of the hospitals that has received the most
federal earmarks of any hospital in the country, having received
millions from Durbin and then-Sen. Barack Obama.
In 2009, Durbin, sent two earmarks, one $951,000 and another for
$500,000, to the children’s hospital. In 2010, he sent another two
earmarks, totaling $1,000,000.
Durbin worked to save federal funding for the hospital and other
Chicago-area hospitals from Clinton-backed Medicaid cuts in 2000. He
also fought federal cuts to Children’s Memorial Hospital’s budget in
1995 despite then representing Springfield, Il. in Congress. The
hospital has seen its shares of politics: Gov. Rod Blagojevich once threatened to withhold an
earmark of $8 million if he didn’t receive a $50,000 donation from a
Children’s Memorial Hospital executive.
When Christine was 24, she began working for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture in Washington, D.C., which also had cushy government
benefits. She worked there for sixteen years before dying from an
unspecified congenital heart problem. Most insurance plans cover
congenital heart problems, albeit at an elevated rates.
Durbin’s office did not return a request for comment on how the
senator could have known which policies he could have bought on the open
market given his longtime status as a government employee and the heart condition his daughter suffered from.
Durbin opposes the Vitter Amendment, which would force some federal employees, including members of Congress, onto the Obamacare exchanges.
“Senator Durbin wants to force Obamacare on average citizens while he wants a taxpayer-subsidized deluxe health plan for Congress. That hypocrisy explains why he goes to such lengths
to change the subject. If Obamacare is so great, why do Mr. Durbin and
other senators want to be exempted from the plan they want to impose on
the public?” Ken Boehm of the ethics watchdog group, National Legal and
Policy Center, told The Daily Caller.
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